Chapter 3
In another public-house where they stopped, he offered the pearl for a glass of beer, but no one accepted the offer. The pearl which was worth many hundreds of pounds was despised by one and all. Then Horne offered it for a packet of cigarettes, but again it was handed back with the remark, "That's no good to me." So one of his friends suggested that he should crush it under the heel of his boot as it was no good.
Later on when some one asked him what he had done with it he said he had thrown it away.
It is a wonderful story and quite true. "Oh!" you say, "what a thousand pities, if that man Horne had only known its value, it would have made him a rich man in one day."
Are you not surprised that none of these men ever thought of finding out the real value of that pearl? But is it not stranger still that scarcely any one ever stops to inquire who Jesus Christ really is, and the meaning of His death on the Cross? You listened just now with astonishment to the questions and answers about this valuable pearl, and yet the same questions are being asked every day about another Pearl, God's Pearl of great price, and people are treating it with the same indifference. How the angels must look on and wonder!
There are two questions which you have to answer now. First, What think ye of Christ, whose Son is He? Can you say, "He is the Son of God"? Think of the Glory of His Person: it is "the glory of the only begotten of the Father." Think of His Divine Mission: sent by God to be the Saviour now and the Judge by and by. Think of Him as God's great Gift to a perishing world. Have you received Him?
The other question which you have to answer is, "What shall I do with Jesus?" Remember God hath given to us Eternal Life and this life is in His Son. "He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son of God has not life." [Footnote: I John v. 12.] Jesus is pleading with you, saying, "Ye will not come," that means, you are unwilling to come to Me "that you may have Life." [Footnote: St. John v. 40.] By and by you will have to face another question, "What will He do with me?"
"The Son of God is come." It is God Himself who presents Him to us: "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." [Footnote: St. John i. 29.] He is the One whom God Himself has provided and set apart: and "now He has appeared once for all to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." [Footnote: Heb. ix. 26.] There on Calvary's Cross before the eyes of crowds of people "who came together to see that sight," He is set forth as the spotless Son of God who was made an offering for sin. He it is "whom God now sets forth to us as a propitiation." [Footnote: Rom. iii. 25.] He it is, and no other, whom God sets forth as a Mercy seat, the Blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat. God's eye rests on Christ and His finished work, and because it is a full, perfect and sufficient satisfaction for all our sins, "God sets Him forth in order to demonstrate His righteousness that He may be shown to be righteous Himself and the giver of righteousness to those who believe in Jesus." Oh, what a comfort it is to me to know that He is always there standing before God as the Righteous One, and therefore when God looks at me in all my unworthiness He does not see me, He only sees His dear Son.
When that godly physician Sir James Simpson was dying, the minister who was by his bedside asked if he had any doubts. He looked up and said, "I have no doubts; when I stand before God I shall just _hold up Christ to God."_
This is why Jesus is come, and this is why Jesus died, that the believing soul may hold Him up to God as "the One who has been made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption," [Footnote: I Cor. i. 30.] and it is all God's doing, from first to last. I love to say to myself,--
"I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my all in all."
Our salvation depends on believing God's Word, that He has accepted our Surety. When God raised Him from the dead, it was a proof that all the claims of His holiness and justice had been fully met and satisfied. The debt is paid because Jesus paid it all. He gave Himself as a ransom--the redemption price for all.
So now God sets Him forth in all His untold preciousness and proclaims the glorious message, "_Deliver him_, that poor helpless sinner, from going down into the pit. I have found a ransom." [Footnote: Job xxxiii. 24.]
What was the price to be paid? "The Son of man is come to give His life a ransom for many." "We are redeemed, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." Who can tell how precious? "More precious far than gold." Think what it _cost_ the Father: He gave His only Son. "Having yet one son, His well-beloved, He said, I will send Him."
Think what it cost the Son of God. Think of His agony in the garden, and then the hiding of His Father's face, and last of all the pouring out His soul unto death on the cross. Our redemption is doubly precious, not only because of the price paid, but because of the Divine and Holy One who paid it, the Lord of glory, even the Son of God Himself, "Which things even the _angels_ desire to look into." [Footnote: 1 Pet. i. 12.] They long to see into the depths of this wondrous redeeming love.
Can you sing this chorus from your heart--
"Precious, precious, Precious is my Lord to me; Precious, precious, Everything in Him I see."
Think of what we have been rescued from! Christ has redeemed us from sin, and death and hell.
Think of the cost of this great salvation, and then ask yourself, how much is it worth to me? We shall only be able to answer that question when we are safe home in the glory. Then we shall be looking back on death, looking back on the Judgment of the great White Throne, as never having come into it: looking back on the old world which has passed away.
"When this passing world is done, When has sunk yon glorious sun, When I go to Christ in glory, Looking o'er life's finished story; Then, Lord, shall I fully know Not till then--how much I owe."
Think of the last plague which God sent upon Egypt. It was not till the midnight cry, that exceeding great and bitter cry had resounded through the land of Egypt showing that the destroying angel had entered the houses of the Egyptians, leaving death and desolation there; it was not till _the judgment had actually come_ that the Israelites realised the delivering power of the blood which they had sprinkled on their doorposts. Think of their wonder and of their thankfulness. They had believed and obeyed before, but _now_ their hearts are filled with gratitude and praise. If you have really cast yourself and all your sins on Christ, then you too will join in the new song, saying, "Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood." [Footnote: Rev. v. 9.]
To _receive_ Christ now into our hearts by faith is to be born of God: [Footnote: St. John. i. 12, 13.] spiritual life is imparted to the believer.
To _feed_ upon Christ day by day is to live by Him: [Footnote: St. John vi. 57.] this is the evidence of life in the believer.
To see Christ by and by and to be like Him, is life perfected in glory. [Footnote: 1 John iii. 2.]
Dear fellow sinners, let me entreat you most earnestly in the light of an Eternity that is coming, and as you value your precious, never-dying souls, do not trifle with God's unspeakable Gift. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" [Footnote: Heb. ii. 3.] No one either in heaven or upon earth can answer that question. If the lost in hell could speak to us they would tell us that there is _no_ escape.
THE SON OF GOD IS COME,
and oh! the wonder of it all, "He came to where I was." The words of this beautiful hymn describe it--
"I looked and there was none to help, 'No man' could meet my case: A weary, world-worn heart was mine, Without a resting place. Then One drew near, the Christ of God, With pitying eyes He scanned, Jesus came to me where I was, And took me by the hand.
"He led me first to Calvary's mount, And, oh! what sight it gave! The agony, the life out-poured, It cost Him there to save. My heart fell broken at His feet, Who could such love withstand? The love that came to where I was, And took me by the hand.
"He lifted me upon a rock, Round me His light He shed; He poured His peace into my heart, He healed, He held, He fed. Ah! then I knew that holy One, The whole could understand. The One who came to where I was, And took me by the hand.
"And since that day, through all the days, His love my way has planned: He comes to bless me where I am, He takes me by the hand. This glorious One is all to me, He shall my life command, The Christ who came to where I was, And took me by the hand."
ADDRESS IV
THE SPIRIT OF GOD
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--St. John iv. 1-26
God is a Spirit. Look at this poor woman standing at the well and let us try and realise what a wonderful revelation it was which Christ made known to her soul about God. He told her that God is Father, that God is Saviour, and that God is Spirit; three Persons but one God.
The Lord opened her heart and she grasped this wondrous truth.
Christ said to her, "God the Father is seeking you, He is longing for you to come to Him." Then He let her feel and see that He is the Saviour.
Was it not wonderful that she was the first to tell the good news that He is "the Saviour of the world"? [Footnote: St. John iv. 42.]
Christ said to her, "God is a Spirit," and she found that no one else but God could touch her heart.
Until the Spirit of God comes into our hearts, we cannot really know God personally or have communion with Him. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 12.]
Although our hearts are so sinful the Holy Spirit is longing to come in. He found an entrance into the heart of this poor woman whose life was a wreck with its four great failures. Every life is a failure in God's sight, but we must never despair of any one, for "with God all things are possible," and as long as life lasts there is hope for the sinner.
"The Lord opened her heart," she heard and believed, and went home to tell others what a dear Saviour she had found. It was the beginning of a revival at Sychar, and every revival begins in the same way, God is revealed by His Spirit and men realise the nearness of God.
Until a man really finds out what God is, there can be no true spiritual worship. This is the truth Jesus came to make known to us when He says, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth," for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Yes, the Father is seeking us, yearning for us to come close to Him and to respond to His love for us. When our Lord tells us that we must worship in spirit, He means that it is the spirit in man which responds to the Spirit of God. Do you offer Him your heart's devotion and praise, or is it only lip-worship?
True spiritual worship does not depend on forms or ceremonies or on any special place or time. I felt the point of this when a railwayman said to me, "We can be in touch with God all the day long."
God is a Spirit, just as "God is Light." [Footnote: 1 John i. 5.] And there are no limitations as to where He works or His ways and time of working.
The Holy Spirit reveals to us far more about God than we ever imagined. The Bible says, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10.]
Until the Holy Spirit opens our blind eyes to see spiritual things we cannot understand them. It is not the words of man's wisdom which can explain them, we need to use spiritual words for spiritual truths, so we can only speak as the Holy Spirit teaches us what to say. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him," [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 14.] he does not grasp the meaning of them.
It is because God is a Spirit that he meets our spiritual need when we feel altogether helpless and hopeless in ourselves, for He says, "I will put My Spirit within you." [Footnote: Ezek. xxxvi. 27.] God begins in the very centre of our being, in our innermost hearts. God makes Himself known to us as God, through our spiritual necessities.
The Presence of the Holy Spirit is a personal thing in each one who receives Him. There is only one way by which we can receive the Holy Spirit, and that is by faith. The Holy Ghost has been given. Will you ask yourself, Have I received Him? If not, why not?
When God puts His Spirit into our hearts He abides with us for ever. He never leaves us. Even when we grieve Him by our coldness of heart, He does not leave us.
It is God who begins the work of grace in our hearts. The Book which reveals to us what God is, opens with the words, "In the Beginning, _God_." [Footnote: Gen. i. 1.] God is the Beginner of all things, not only of the creation of the world, but of the new creation in our souls. This Book unfolds to us how God begins and finishes the great work of redemption and salvation.
We find another marvellous beginning which is also unfolded in this Book. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." [Footnote: 1 Gen. i. 2.] It is a remarkable word; it means the Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters. In Genesis we read, "The Spirit of God was brooding," and in the Gospels we find the Spirit of God compared to a dove. The word "brooding" is a figure of the mother dove brooding over her nest and cherishing her young. The first time the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament is in this verse, and the first emblem of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is in the 3rd chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, where it says that, after our Lord had been baptized, "The heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him." [Footnote: St. Matt. iii. 16.]
First let us look at the background of the picture. We see darkness and desolation, death and ruin. Then we see the Spirit of God, the Dove of peace, brooding over it all, and bringing light and life, love and peace out of the confusion.
So the two thoughts which are here brought to our minds are Motherhood and Peace. If you look carefully into the Word of God you will see how the thought of Motherhood is brought before us in many ways in connection with the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.
When Christ is speaking of the New Birth, He says we are "born of the Spirit." [Footnote: St. John iii. 6.] Again, when the cry of the new-born soul is spoken of, we are told how it comes; for Paul says, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." [Footnote: Gal. iv. 6] Again there is the beautiful expression, "The Spirit of Adoption." "We have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 15.] "Abba" means "dear Father."
When God would reveal His heart of love to us He says, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." [Footnote: Isa. lxvi. 13.] Think of a mother busy with her work, and her little one playing on the floor. Presently there is a cry, it has fallen down, and in a moment the mother is by its side to soothe it. But there is something sweeter still. Even if nothing befall the child the mother is near by to help it over every difficulty and to respond to every look and sign. Even so our God who is to us our Mother Comforter, says, "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." [Footnote: Isa. lxv. 24]
The little child always turns to its mother for comfort in every trouble. There is one thing which we notice in every home, that is, the mother's tender love and constant care for her little one. Night and day her child is her one thought. So the Lord says of His people, "I the Lord do keep it, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." [Footnote: Isa. xxvii. 3.] Every child of God can say--
"Moment by moment I'm kept in His love."
Does the child need the mother's constant, watchful care? Yes, because everything around is like a new world to the little one, it is all a new experience. The mother gives herself up so entirely to the child that it depends on her for everything. In the same way when the soul is born again it is brought into a new relation to God, it has entered into a new experience and the Holy Spirit becomes to it just what the mother is to the child and much more.
Just as the mother trains the little one to take the first steps in walking and holds it up, so it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us how to walk and to please God. The little hand is slipped into mother's hand to be led and held up. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 14.]
The mother keeps the child close to her, so the Holy Spirit is the Comforter to us, by our side, for the word "Comforter" means, The one whom we call to our side to help us. Just as the mother tells her child what to say when it wants anything, so He helps us when we pray, "for we know not what we should pray for as we ought." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 26.]
"The Comforter is come." When did He come? On the day of Pentecost, for it was _then_ that the Holy Spirit was poured out, and He has been with us ever since.
Let those words ring in your heart and in your life, "The Comforter is come." [Footnote: St. John xv. 26.] There is a beautiful hymn which illustrates the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It begins with the words--
"Spirit Divine! attend our prayers, And make our hearts Thy home."
Then four things are mentioned which show forth God's power in Nature. Light, fire, dew, wind. In the Bible they are all used as symbols of the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of men.
In Nature we know that human power is small compared with the power of light, fire, wind, and water. Have we learnt to depend only on the Power of the Holy Ghost? God's Voice is ever saying to us now, oh! that we may listen, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." [Footnote: Zech. iv. 6.] Just as all the marvels of the natural world are perfectly carried out by God's wisdom and power, so He has given the Holy Spirit to make Him perfectly known as a living Presence, a living Power and Reality in our hearts and lives.
In the second verse of the hymn we find the words--
"Come as the Light--to us reveal Our emptiness and woe."
We know what the light does when it shines into a room, It reveals or shows up any dust we had not noticed before. So when the light of God shines into our hearts it reveals what we never saw before.
Have you ever watched the battleships on a dark night, anchored a little way off from the coast? Suddenly the bright dazzling searchlights are sent out from the ship. They seem to sweep over the ocean with their sparkling light and then to wrap you round, as you stand there on the shore. The sight fills you with wonder; you feel as if the eyes of all on board ship can see you.
It is the same when the Holy Spirit shines into our hearts; it is almost overwhelming; we can only cry, "Woe is me, for I am undone." [Footnote: Isa. vi. 5.] We stand condemned under the searching eye of God. All our self-righteous excuses are swept away. We can no longer take refuge in the fact that we are as good as others and a great deal better than some of our neighbours. The dazzling light of God's Presence has searched us through and through and turned us inside out. Is this searching necessary for every one? Yes, for it is the only way we can learn to know the evil of our hearts.
Sometimes the light of the Holy Spirit comes to us in a quiet moment and shows us what we never saw before. Sometimes it comes like a flash. It flashed out on the road when Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus. He described it when he was being tried before King Agrippa, "At midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me. And I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he tells us also that he could not see for the glory of that light." [Footnote: Acts xxvi. 13, xxii 17.] Whenever the light comes it is a revelation, a moment never to be forgotten: Darkness conceals, light reveals.
The Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters, and God said, "Let there be light and there was light." [Footnote: Gen. i. 3.]
The Holy Spirit not only shows us what we are, but He shows Christ to us; then we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." [Footnote: 2 Cor. iv. 6.] Yes, God's glory is radiant on the face of Christ and the Holy Spirit reveals it. He delights to show us His beauty and His loveliness and thus to glorify Him. He makes Him a reality in our souls--"a living bright Reality." If you have not seen Him as "altogether lovely" it is not because the Holy Spirit is not willing to show Him to you, but because you turn away and will not look.
How good it is of God to send the Holy Spirit into this world on purpose to reveal these things to us. We should never see them but for Him. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." [Footnote: I Cor. ii. 14.] What is the natural man? It is what we are by nature before the Spirit of God gives us a new life. When it says "He receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," it means that he has no power to receive them. He is groping in the dark, loving the darkness rather than the light.
A poor woman who had led a careless worldly life, sent me this message when she was dying, "Tell her the little prayer she taught me has been answered. She will understand. Tell her God has shown me myself and He has shown me Himself, so I am going to be with Him."
The little prayer which she had learnt from my lips was this--"Lord, show me myself; Lord, show me Thyself." How I thanked God that He used it for the saving of her soul.
When the Holy Spirit convinces us of sin and of our need of a Saviour, He does not leave us there. He draws aside the veil and reveals to us the secret love of God. When our eyes have been opened to know that God is _Light_, then we find out that God is _Love_. How did this love of God show itself? God sent His Son, "In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." [Footnote: 1 John iv. 9.] It is not only the Love of God made known and shining out in the Gift of His Son, but we are told that "God commendeth His love towards us." [Footnote: Rom. v. 8.] How does God commend His love? He sets together His love for His Son and His love for the sinner, and His love for the sinner is so great that He gave His Son to die for us. Thus the words "God commendeth His love" make it quite clear that "God loves the sinner with a love which gives its best, gives everything, keeping nothing back, and gives to everybody."
"Oh, the love that gave Jesus to die, The love that gave Jesus to die, Praise God it is mine this love so Divine-- The love that gave Jesus to die."