If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.  And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me: of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more: of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.—John xvi. 7–11.

I do not pretend to be able to explain to you the whole meaning of this text, or even more than a very small part of it.  For it speaks of God; of God the Holy Spirit.  And God is boundless; and, therefore, every text which speaks of God is boundless too, as God is.  No man can ever see the whole meaning of it, or do more than understand dimly a little of its truth.  But what we can see, we must think over and make use of.  What can we see, now, from this text?  First, we may see that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is a person.  Not a mere thing, or a state of our own hearts, or a feeling in us, or a power, like the powers and laws by which the trees and plants grow, and the sun and moon move in their courses; but a person, just as each of us is a person.  He, the Holy Spirit, gives life to trees and plants, sun and moon: but He is not their life.  He gives them their life; and, therefore, that life of theirs is not He, or He could not give it; for you can only give something which is not you.

The Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit, not as it, but as He; as a person, and not as a thing; as a person who can speak to men’s souls, guide and teach them.

“When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself.”

But we may see also that the Holy Spirit is neither God the Father, nor the Lord Jesus Christ.  For the Lord speaks of Him, the Holy Spirit, as a different person either from Him or from the Father.  “The Spirit,” He says, “shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.”

But we may see also that there is no difference in will, or opinion, or love, between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son.  For the Spirit does not speak of Himself; there is no self-will in Him.  There is not one will of the Father, and another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one love of the Father, another love of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one righteousness of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost: or, one mercy and grace of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost.  For then there would be three Gods and three Lords; and the substance of God would be divided.  But they have all one will, and one love, and one righteousness, and one mercy.  And such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

And remember always, that the Holy Spirit is very and indeed God.  For He is the Spirit of holiness itself, of righteousness itself, of goodness itself, of love itself, of truth itself; and, therefore, He is the Spirit of God, who is the perfect holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love.  All other holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love, are only pictures and patterns of God, just as the sun’s reflection in water, or in a glass, is a picture and pattern of the sun.  As the Epistle for to-day tells us: “Every good gift and every perfect is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.”

But the Spirit of God must be God.  For else what do the words mean?  Is not the spirit of a man, a man?  Is not your spirit, what you call your soul, you?  Is not your soul you, just as much as your body is you; ay, a hundred times more?  Just so, the Spirit of God is God, God Himself; and the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

This, then, is the glorious promise made to you, and to me, and to all who believe and are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that that Spirit will come to us, and take charge of our spirits, and work in them, and teach them.  We cannot see Him with our eyes, or hear Him with our ears; we cannot even feel Him at work in our hearts and thoughts.  For He is a Spirit; and His likeness, the thing in this world which is a pattern of Him, is the wind; as indeed the name Spirit means.  You cannot see the wind, you cannot even really feel the wind or hear it: you only know it by its effects, by what it does: by the noise among the branches, the force against your faces, the bending boughs, and flying dust.  The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so is every one who is born of the Spirit.  On him the Spirit of God will work unseen, and unfelt, only to be discovered by the change which He makes in the man’s heart and thoughts; and first by the way in which He convinces him of sin, because men believe not on Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit shows men that the sins of the world, the sin of all sins, the sin which is the root of all other sins, is not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was because they would not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they had been falling into every other sort of sin.

But you may say: “How could they believe on Him before He came, and was born in Judæa of the Virgin Mary?  How could they believe on Him when He was not there?”  Ah! my friends, who told you that the Lord Jesus Christ was not there in the world all along?  Not the Bible, certainly.  For the Bible tells us that He is the Light who lights every man who cometh into the world; that from Him came, and have come, all the right thoughts and feelings which ever arose in the heart of every human being.  The Bible tells us that when God created the world, He was daily rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men.  The Bible tells us that He was in the world, and the world knew Him not; that all along, through the dark times of heathendom, the Lord Jesus Christ was a light shining in darkness, which the darkness could not close round, and hide and quench.

Not merely to the Jews, but to all heathens who hungered and thirsted after righteousness, did the Lord Jesus show something of His truth; as it is written, God is no acceptor of persons; that is, no shower of partiality, or unjust favour: but in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.

But at the time that the Lord Jesus sent down His Holy Spirit, men were not working righteousness.  There was not one who did good, no not one.  For men had forgotten what righteousness was like, what a righteous man ought to do and be.  Men are ready to forget it every day.  You and I are ready to forget it, and invent some false righteousness of our own, not like Jesus Christ, but like what we in our private fancies think is most graceful, or most agreeable, or most easy; or most grand, and far-fetched, and difficult.  But the Holy Spirit came to convince men of righteousness; to show them what true righteousness was like.

And how?  In the same way that He must convince us of righteousness, if we are ever to know what righteousness is, or are ever to be righteous ourselves.  He must show us goodness; or we shall never see it, or receive it, or copy it.

And where is this righteousness, this perfect goodness of which the Holy Spirit will convince us?  Where, but in the Lord Jesus Christ?  In the Lord Jesus’s character, the Lord Jesus’s good works; His love, His patience, His perfect obedience, His life, His death.  The Holy Spirit, if we give up our hearts to be taught by Him, will make us believe, and be sure, and feel in our very inmost hearts, how noble, how beautiful, how holy, how perfectly Godlike, was He who was born of a poor virgin, who walked this earth for thirty-three years in toil and sorrow, who gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting, who died upon a cross between two thieves.  And the Holy Spirit will convince us of righteousness, by making us feel what the Lord Jesus’s righteousness consisted in; what was the root of all His goodness and holiness, namely His perfect obedience to His Father and our Father in heaven.  That is the righteousness, which is not our own, but God’s; the righteousness which comes by faith; not to trust in ourselves, but in God; not to please ourselves, but God; not to do our own will, but God’s will.  That is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which God set His seal on and approved, when He exalted Him far above all principality and powers, and set Him at His own right hand for a sign to all men, and angels, and archangels; that righteousness means to trust and to obey God even to the death.

3.  Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

This may seem a puzzling speech at first.  We shall understand it best, I think, by considering who the prince of this world was in our Lord’s time, and what he was like.  A little before our Lord’s time the Roman emperor had conquered almost the whole world which was then known, and kept all nations in slavery, careless about their doing right, provided they obeyed him and paid him tribute; nay, forcing them and tempting them into all brutal and foul sin and ignorance, that he might keep up his own power over man.

But now the Lord of all the earth, and the Prince of men’s hearts and thoughts, was come to visit that poor enslaved and sinful world.  He came; the princes of this world knew Him not, and crucified the Lord of Glory.  They crucified the righteous and the just One; and so they were judged.  They judged themselves; they condemned themselves.  For they showed that what they admired and what they wanted was not righteousness and love, but wealth and power.  They showed that no doing of good, no healing of the sick, or giving of sight to the blind, or preaching the gospel to the poor, no holiness, no love, not the perfect likeness of God’s own goodness, which shone forth in the spotless Jesus, was anything to them; was any reason why they should not put Him to death with the most cruel torments, because they were afraid of His taking away their power.  He said He was a King; and therefore they crucified Him, lest His kingdom should interfere with theirs; and for the same reason these same Roman emperors and their magistrates, for hundreds of years afterwards, persecuted the Christians, and hunted them down like wild beasts, and put them to death by all horrible tortures, for the same reason that Cain slew Abel; became his brother’s deeds were righteous, and his own wicked.

So these Roman emperors, and their magistrates and generals were judged.  They had shown what was in their evil hearts.  They had been tried in God’s balances, and found wanting.  The sentence of the Lord God had gone forth against them.  The man Christ Jesus, whom they rejected, God accepted, and raised to His own right hand.  They crucified Him; but God gave Him all power in heaven and earth: and the Lord Jesus used His power; yea, and uses it still.  He gave His saints and martyrs strength to defy those Roman tyrants, and to witness to all the earth that the righteous Son of God was the King of heaven and earth, and that the princes of this world, who wished to break His yoke off their necks, and crush all nations to powder for their own pleasure, and fatten themselves upon the plunder of all the earth, would surely come to naught, as it is written in the second Psalm: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and His Anointed.  Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.  Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron: thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

And they did come to naught.  That great Roman empire rotted away miserably after years of such distress as had never been seen on the earth before; and the emperors came, one after another, to shameful or dreadful deaths.  And all the while the gospel spread, and the Church grew, till all the kingdoms of the Roman empire had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in men’s hearts, and showing them, as our Lord said He would, that Jesus of Nazareth was both Lord and King.  And so was fulfilled the Lord’s words in the gospel for to-day: “The Holy Spirit shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.  All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I that He should take of mine, and show it unto you.”

Oh my friends, pray for yourselves, and join me while I pray for you, that the holy and righteous Spirit of God may convince you, and me, and all mankind, more and more, day by day, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Pray to that Holy Spirit to convince you of sin day by day, whensoever you do the least wrong thing.  Pray to Him to keep your consciences tender and quick, that you may feel instantly, and lament deeply, every wrong thing you do.

Pray to Him to give you, every time you do wrong, that godly sorrow which brings peace and health, that heart-repentance never to be repented of.  Pray to Him to convince you more and more, as you grow older, that all sin comes from not believing in Jesus Christ, not believing that He is near you, with you, in you, putting into your hearts all right thoughts and good desires, and willing, if you will, to help you to put those thoughts and desires into good practice.

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of righteousness; to make you see what righteousness is; that it is the very character and likeness of God the Father, because it is the character and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person.  Pray to Him to make you see the beauty of holiness: how fair, and noble, and glorious a thing goodness is; how truly Solomon says: “that all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.”

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of judgment, and to make you sure that the Lord is King, a righteous Judge, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, whose fan is in His hand, who thoroughly purges His floor, who comes quickly, and His reward is with Him, and who surely casts out of His kingdom, sooner or later, all things that offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.  Pray to Him to make you sure by faith, though you cannot see it, that the prince of this world is judged; that evil doing, oppression, tyranny, injustice, cheating, neglect of man by man, cannot and will not prosper upon the face of God’s earth; for the everlasting sentence and wrath of God is revealed forth every moment against all unrighteousness of men, which He will surely punish, yea, and does hourly punish by Him by whom He judges the world, Jesus Christ, the Lord, who is exalted high above all principalities and powers, and has all power given to Him in heaven and earth, which He uses, as He used it in Judæa of old, utterly and always for the good of all mankind, whom He hath redeemed with His most precious blood.

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain: for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.—1 Corinthians xv. 1–4.

This is St. Paul’s account of the gospel; the good news which he preached to the sinful and profligate Corinthians, when they were sunk lower than the beasts which perish.  And because they believed this good news, he said, they were saved then and there, and would be safe only as long as they believed that good news, and kept it in their memories.  Now, from what did this good news save them?  From their sins.  There was something in St. Paul’s good news which made them hate their sins, and repent of them, and throw them away, and rise up to be new men and women, living new lives in godliness and purity and justice, such as they had never lived before.  Now mind, it was not bad news which made the Corinthians repent of their sins; it was good news.  It was not that St. Paul told them that God was going to cast them into endless torment for their sins, and that therefore they were terrified and afraid, and so repented.  Doubtless St. Paul told them, as he told other heathens, that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness; that tribulation and anguish was laid up in store for every soul of man who worketh evil.  But still, St. Paul says plainly here, that what saved the Corinthians was not that or any other fearful and terrifying news, but a gospel—good news.  And he says that this good news did not merely, as some would wish it to do, make them comfortable in their minds while they went on in their old wicked ways.  No.  He says that it made them stand.  That is, made them upright, strong-minded, righteous, self-restraining people; and that they were saved by it from those sins which had been dragging them down, and keeping them diseased in soul, weak, miserable, the slaves of their own passions and foul pleasures.

What wonderful good news was this, then, which could work so strange a change in these poor heathens, and how could it change them?

Let us see, first, what it was.

“That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and that He was seen of Peter, then of the twelve; after that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remained unto this day, but some are fallen asleep.  After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles.  And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”

You see here, that St. Paul, for some good reason, says much more about the Lord’s rising again than even about His most precious death and passion on the cross, while about His ascending into heaven he says nothing.  And you will find in the New Testament that the Apostles often did the same.  They spoke of the Lord rising again as if that was the great wonder, the great glory, the great good news; and as if His most precious death was not perfect without that.  They said that the especial office for which the Lord had ordained them, was to be witnesses of His resurrection.  They said that the Lord rose again for our justification.  They said: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”  Here again, just as in the text, believing in the Lord’s resurrection is made the great article of faith.  Why is this?  Because that last verse which I quoted may tell us, if we consider it carefully.

What does confessing the Lord Jesus with our mouth mean?  It means what we ought to mean when we say, in the Apostles’ Creed, I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.  Not merely, I believe that there is an only Son of God: but I believe in a certain man, with a certain character, who is that only Son of God.

And what, you will ask, does that mean?

To know that, I fear, we must go back many many hundred years, to the times when the old martyrs confessed the Lord Jesus Christ before the heathen.  Those were times in which it was not enough to say the Apostles’ Creed in church.  Men, ay, and tender women, and little children, had to stand by it through terror and shame, and to die in torments unspeakable, because they chose to say: “I believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  Now, what was it which made the heathen hate and persecute and torture, and murder them for saying that?  What was there in those plain words of the Apostles’ Creed which made the great heathen emperors of Rome, and their officers and judges hunt the Christians down like wild beasts for 300 years, and declare that they were not fit to live?  I will tell you.  When the Christians were brought before the emperor’s judges for being Christians, they did not merely say: “I believe that Jesus Christ’s blood will save my soul after death.”  They said that: but they said a great deal more than that.  If that had been all that the Christians said, the judge would have answered: “What care I for your souls, or for your notions about what will happen to them when you are dead?  Go your way.  You may be of what religion you like, and talk and think about your own souls as much as you like, provided you do not trouble the Roman emperor’s power.”  But the heathen judge did not make that answer; because he knew well enough that what the Christians believed was not a mere religion about what would happen to their souls after death; but something which, if it gained ground, would utterly destroy the Roman emperor’s power.  He used generally to say to the Christians only this: “Will you burn those few grains of incense in honour of the emperor of Rome?”  And he knew, and the Christians knew well enough, that those words meant: “Will you confess with your mouth the emperor of Rome?  Will you confess that he is the only lord and king of this whole earth, and of your bodies and souls, and that there is no power or authority but of him, for the gods have delivered all things into his hands?”  And then came out what confessing the Lord Jesus really means.  For the Christians used to answer: “No.  The emperor of Rome is the lord and master of our bodies, and we will obey his laws so far as we can without doing wrong: but we cannot obey them when they are contrary to the laws of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.  For the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose again the third day, He, and not the emperor of Rome at all, is the Lord and King of the whole earth, and of our bodies and souls; and we must obey Him before we obey anyone else.  Power and authority come not from the emperor of Rome, but from the Lord Jesus Christ; and the emperor is only His servant and steward, and must obey Him just as much as we, or the Lord will punish him as surely and easily as He will the meanest slave.  For God has delivered all things, and the emperor of Rome among the rest, into the hand of His Son Jesus Christ, who sits a King over all, God blessed for ever.”  That was confessing Christ.

And to that the heathen judges used to make but one answer—for there was but one to make.  Those heathen judges’ guilty consciences, as well as their worldly cunning, told them plainly enough exactly what St. Paul told the Christians; that those Christians, by confessing Christ, were not fighting against flesh and blood, and setting up their selfish interests against other people’s selfish interests: but that the battle they were fighting was a much deeper and more terrible one; that by saying that One who had walked the earth as a poor man, and yet a perfectly righteous and loving man, doing nothing but good, and sacrificing Himself utterly for poor fallen creatures, they were fighting against the whole state of things all over the world; against the government, and principles, and religion of that whole unjust and tyrannical Roman empire, and all its rulers, and generals, and judges; against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of those times; against spiritual wickedness in heavenly things.  For if Jesus Christ’s life was the right life, those rulers must be utterly wrong; for it was exactly opposite to His.

If Jesus Christ was really the Governor of the earth, there was no hope for them; for their way of governing was exactly opposite to His.  So as I say, they made but one answer; because there was but one to make: “You say that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.  I say the emperor of Rome is.  You say you must obey Christ first, and the emperor of Rome afterwards.  I say that you must obey the emperor first, and Christ afterwards.  At all events, if you do not, you have no right on this earth of the emperor’s; either the emperor’s power must fall, or your notion about Jesus Christ’s power must.  And we will see whether your heavenly King of whom you talk can deliver you out of the emperor’s hand.”  And then came the scourge, and the red-hot iron, and the wild beasts, and the cross, and all devilish tortures which man’s evil will could invent, brought to bear without shame or mercy upon aged men, and tender girls, and even little children, just to make them say that the earth belonged to the emperor, and not to Jesus Christ.  Those who died bravely under those tortures without denying Christ were called martyrs, which means witnesses—people who bore witness before God and man that Jesus Christ was King and Lord.  Those who did not die under the tortures, but escaped after all, were called confessors—people who had confessed with their mouths that Jesus Christ was King and Lord, in spite of their terror and agony. . . .  That was what confessing Jesus Christ meant in the old times.  And that was what it ought to mean now, even though there is no persecution or torture for Christians in these happier times.

And now, we may see perhaps why St. Paul spoke so much of our Lord’s rising again as the most important part of the gospel.

Because he wanted Christians to believe, not merely in a Christ who once died, but in Him who died and is alive for evermore; in a Christ who rose again, body, soul, and spirit, and sat at God’s right hand, praying for poor creatures when they were tempted, and persecuted, and tormented for righteousness’ sake.  St. Paul knew well that such fearful times as those of which I have been speaking were coming on the people to whom he wrote.  And he knew equally well that the only thought which could save them, when the heathen judges commanded them to deny the Lord Jesus, was the thought that He was really risen.  The only thought which could make them bold enough to face all the horrors of death, was the thought that the Lord Jesus had not merely tasted death, but conquered it, and risen again from it.  And therefore it is that St. Paul speaks so often of Christ’s resurrection, and that in the text he takes so much pains to prove that Christ had really risen, by telling them how many persons, well known to him who wrote to them, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ after He rose, and talked with Him, and were sure that He was the very same person still, with the same countenance, and body, and soul, and spirit, as He had when He was nailed to the cross, and laid in the sepulchre.

What a thought for a poor creature in the last agony of fear and shame, expecting presently to be torn in pieces, or burnt alive: “Death, this horrible death, cannot conquer me, weak and fearful as I am; for my Lord and Master, for whom I am going to suffer, has conquered death, and He will not let it conquer me.  He is stronger than death and hell, and He will not suffer me at my last hour for any pains of death to fall from Him.  He is King of heaven and earth, and He will take care of His own!”  What a comfortable thought to be able to say: “Ay, I am torn from wife and child, and all which I love on earth.  But not for ever, not for ever.  For Christ rose from the dead.  And I who belong to Christ, shall rise as He did.  This poor flesh of mine may be burnt in flames, devoured by ravenous beasts.  What matter?  Christ the King of men, has risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.  That same Spirit of His, which brought back His body from the grave and hell, will bring our bodies also from the grave and hell, to a nobler, happier life with Him in glory unspeakable.  Christ is risen, and I shall rise with Him at the last day.  Christ sits at God’s right hand, watching me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me a crown of glory which shall never fade away!”  That was the thought which gave Stephen courage to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, amid to die in peace and the murderous blows of the Jews.  For by faith he saw, as he said, the heavens opened, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.  He knew that his Lord was risen, and that He would hear his dying cry: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

And so with us, my friends; we have no martyrdom to go through, thank God; but it is just as true of us as it was of the blessed martyrs and confessors, that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Saved; not only from hell, but from sin, from giving way to temptation, from denying Christ.  Oh, pray for faith.  Pray for faith.  Pray to be able really to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus.  Pray to believe with your hearts that God has raised Him from the dead.  Then when you are tempted to do wrong, you, like Stephen, will see, not with your bodily eyes, but by faith, the Lord Jesus sitting at God’s right hand, and be able to say to Him: “Lord Jesus, who hast conquered all temptation, help me to conquer this.  Thine eye is on me; how can I do this great wickedness and sin against Thee?”  When you are in terror, and trouble, and affliction, and know not where to turn, that same blessed thought—“Christ is risen from the dead”—will be a shield and a strength to you which no other thought can give.  “My Lord is risen; He is here still—a man, with His man’s body, and His man’s spirit—His man’s love and tenderness; He has taken them all up to heaven with Him.  He is a man still, though He is very God of very God.  He rose from the dead as a man, and therefore He can understand me, and feel for me still, now, here in England in this very year, 1852, just as much as He could when He was walking upon earth in Judæa of old.”

Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this world is vanishing from our eyes, and we are going we know not whither, leaving behind us all we know, and love, and understand; then that thought of all thoughts—“Christ is risen from the dead”—is the only one which will save us from dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, or from stupid carelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too many die.  “Christ is risen and I shall rise.  Christ has conquered death for Himself, and He will conquer it for me.  Christ took His man’s body and soul with Him from the tomb to God’s right hand, and He will raise my man’s body and soul at the last day, that I may be with Him for ever, and see Him where He is.”  In life and in death this is the only thing which shall save us from sin, from terror, and from the dread of death; the same good news which St. Paul preached to the Corinthians; the same good news which made St. Stephen, and the martyrs and confessors of old brave to endure all misery for the sake of the good and blessed news, that God had raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.—Ezekiel xx. 44.

In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with his sinful and rebellious countrymen, and puts them in mind of all that God has done for them and with them, from the time when He brought them out of Egypt to that day.

And now comes the old question, What has this to do with us!  St. Paul tells us that all things which happened to the old Jews happened for our example.  What example can we learn from this chapter?

This, I think, we may learn: Is not the way in which God taught these Jews the same way in which He teaches many a man—perhaps every man?  Which of us, when we were young, has not had his teaching from God?  The old Catechism which our mothers taught us, was not that a word from God Himself to us?  The voice of conscience, which made us happy when we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed when we had gone wrong; was not that a word from God to us?  Yes, my friends, those child’s feelings of ours about right and wrong, were none other than the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Light which lightens every man who comes into the world.  I tell you, every right thought and wish, every longing to be better than you were, which ever came into any one of your hearts, came from Him, the Lord Jesus.  It was His word, His voice, His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, just as really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of whom we have been reading.  Think of that.  Recollect, never, never forget, that all your good thoughts and feelings are not your own, not your own at all, but the Lord’s; that without His light your hearts are nothing but darkness, blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blind passions and lusts; that it is He, he Himself, who has been fighting against the darkness in you all your life long.  Oh think, then, what your sin has been in putting aside those good thoughts and longings!  You were turning your back, you were shutting your doors to the Lord God Himself, very God of very God begotten, by whom all things were made.  The Creator came to visit His creature, and His creature shut Him out.  The Almighty God pleaded with mortal man, and mortal man bade God go, and come back at a more convenient season!  A voice in your heart seemed to say: “Oh, if I could but be a better man!  How I wish that I could but give up these bad habits, and mend!  I hate and despise myself for being so bad.”  And then you fancied that that voice was your own voice, that those good thoughts were your own thoughts.  If you had really known whose they were; if you had really known, as the Bible tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord, the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to your heart, I hardly think that you would have been so ready to say yourself: “Well, then, I will mend; but not just now: some day or other; somehow or other, I hope, I shall be a better man.  It will be time enough to make my peace with God when I am growing old.”  You would not have dared to thrust away the good thoughts, and keep them waiting, while you took your pleasure in a few more years’ sin; if you had guessed whom you were thrusting away; if you had guessed whom you were keeping waiting.

And, my good friends, has not God been saying to us many a time from our youth up, as He did to the Jews of old: “Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor defile yourselves with their idols?”  Do you ask me how?  Why, thus.  Have you never said to yourself: “How ill my father prospered, because he would do wrong!”  Or, again: “See how evil doing brings its own punishment.  There is so and so growing rich, by his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for all his money, I would not change places with him.  God forbid that I should have on my mind what he has on his mind!” Why should I make a long story of so simple a matter?  Which of us has not felt at times that thought?  How much misery has come in this very parish from the ill-doing of the generation who are gone to their account, and from the ill-training which they gave their children?

And what was that but the Word of the Lord Himself speaking to our hearts, and saying to us: “Do not defile yourselves with their idols; do not hurt your souls by hunting after the things which they loved better than they loved Me: money, pleasure, drink, fighting, smuggling, poaching, wantonness, and lust; I am the Lord your God?”

And yet, young people will not listen to that warning voice of God.  They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by their sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched.  Oh, how many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come from ungodliness; and, then, as soon as they have a home of their own, set to work to make their own family as miserable as their father’s was before them.

But people say often: “How could we help it?  We had no chance; we were brought up in bad ways; we had a bad example set us; how can you expect us to be better than our fathers and mothers, and our elder brothers and sisters?  If we had had a fair chance, we might have been different: but we had none; and we could not help going the bad way, for we were set in it the day we were born.”

Well, my dear friends, God shall judge you, not I.  If little is given to a man little is required of him.  But not nothing at all; because more than nothing was given him.  A little is given to every man; and, therefore, a little is required of every man.  And so, he who knew not his Master’s will shall be beaten with few stripes.  But he will be beaten with some stripes, because he ought to have known something, at least of his Master’s will.  If you were dumb animals, which can only follow their own lusts and passions, and must be what nature has made them, then your excuse would be good enough; but your excuse is not good now, just because you are men and women, and not dumb beasts, and, therefore, can rise above your natures, and conquer your lusts and passions, as they cannot, and can do what you do not like, because, though you dislike it, you know that it is right.  And, therefore, God does not take that excuse which sinners make, that they have had no teaching.  But what does he do to them?

Suppose, now, that you had a dog which would not be taught, or broken in, or cured of biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, what would you do to that dog?  I suppose that you would kill it; you would say: “It is an ill-conditioned animal, and there is no making it any better; so the only thing is to put it out of the way, and not let it eat food which might be better spent.”  Now, does God deal so with sinners?  When young people rush headlong into sin, and become a nuisance to themselves and their neighbours, does God kill them at once, that better men may step into their place?  No.  And why?  Just because they are not dumb animals, which cannot be made better, but God’s children, who can be made better.  If there were really no hope of a sinner repenting and amending, I think God would not leave him long alive to cumber the ground.  But there is hope for every one; because God the Father loves all; the loving heart of the Lord Jesus Christ yearns after all; the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, strives with the hearts of all; therefore God, in His patience and tender mercy, tries to bring his foolish children to their senses.  And how?  Often in the very same way, in which Ezekiel says He tried to bring the Jews to their senses, by letting them go on in the road of sin, till they see what an ugly pit that same road ends in.  If your child would not believe you when you warned and assured him that the fire would burn him, would it not be the very best way of bringing him to his senses, to tell him: “Very well; go your own way; put your hand into the fire, and see what comes of it; you will not believe me; you will believe your own feelings, when your hand is burnt.”  So did the Lord to those rebellious Jews when they would go after their fathers’ sins.  He gave them statutes which were not good, and judgments by which they could not live, to the end that they might know that He was the Lord.  God did not make them commit any sins.  God forbid!  He only took away His Spirit, His light and teaching, from them, and let them go on in the light of their own foolish and bewildered hearts, till their sin bred misery and shame to them, and they were filled with the fruit of their own devices.  Then, after all their wealth was gone, and their land was wasted by cruel enemies, and they themselves were carried away captive into Babylon, they began to awake, and say to themselves: “We were wrong after all, and the Lord was right.  He knew what was really good for us better than we did.  We thought that we could do without Him, disobey Him.  But He is the Lord after all.  He has been too strong for us; He has punished us.  If we had listened to His warnings years ago, we might have been saved all this misery.”

Ah, how many a poor foolish creature, in misery and shame, with a guilty conscience and a sad heart, sits down, like the prodigal son, among the swinish bad company into which his sins have brought him, longing to fill his belly with the husks which the swine eat! but he cannot.  He tries to forget his sorrow by drinking, by bad company, by gambling, by gossiping, like the fools around him: but he cannot.  He finds no more pleasure in sin.  He is sick and tired of it.  He has had enough of it and too much.  He is miserable, and he hardly knows why.  But miserable he is.  There is a longing, and craving, and hunger at his heart after something better; at least after something different.  Then he begins to remember his heavenly Father’s house.  Old words which he learnt at his mother’s knee, good old words out of his Catechism and his Bible, start up strangely in his mind.  He had forgotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in his wild days.  But now they come up, he does not know where from, like beautiful ghosts gliding in.  And he is ashamed of them; they reproach him, the dear old lessons; and yet they seem pleasant to him, though they make him blush.  And at last he says to himself: “Would God that I were a little child again; once more an innocent little child at my mother’s knee!  I thought myself clever and cunning.  I thought I could go my own way and enjoy myself.  But I cannot.  Perhaps I have been a fool; and the old Sunday books were right after all.  At least I am miserable.  I thought I was my own master.  But perhaps He about whom I used to read in the Sunday books is my Master after all.  At least I am not my own master; I am a slave.  Perhaps I have been fighting against Him, against the Lord God, all this time, and now He has shown me that He is the stronger of the two. . . . ”  And so the poor man learns in trouble and shame to know, like the Jews of old, who is the Lord.

And when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, does He stop?  Not so.  He does not leave His work half done.  If the work is half done, it is that we stop, not that He stops.  Whosoever comes to Him, howsoever confusedly, or clumsily, or even lazily they may come, He will in no wise cast out.  He may afflict them still more to cure that confusion and laziness; but He is a physician who never sends a willing patient away, or keeps him waiting for a single hour.

How then does the Lord deal with such a man?  Does He drive him further?  Not if he will go without being driven.  You would call it cruel to drive a beast on with blows, when it was willing to be led peaceably.  And be sure God is not more cruel than man.  As soon as we are willing to be led, He will take His rod off from us, and lead us tenderly enough.  For I have known God do this to a man, and a sinful man as ever trod this earth.  I have known such a man brought into utter misery and shame of heart, and heavy affliction in outward matters, till his spirit was utterly broken, and he was ready to say: “I am a beast and a fool.  I am not worth the bread I eat.  Let me lie down and die.”  And then, when the Lord had driven that man so far, I have seen, I who speak to you now, how the Lord turned and looked on that man as he turned and looked on Peter, and brought his poor soul to life again, as He brought Peter’s, by a loving smile, and not an angry frown.  I have seen the Lord heap that man with all manner of unexpected blessings, and pay him back sevenfold for all his affliction, and raise him up, body and soul, and satisfy him with good things, so that his youth was renewed like the eagle’s.  And so the man’s conversion to God, though it was begun by God’s chastisements and afflictions, was brought to perfection by God’s mercy and bounty; and it happened to that man, as Ezekiel prophesied that it would happen to the Jews, that not fear and dread, but honour, gratitude, and that noble shame of which no man need be ashamed, brought him home to God at last.  “And you shall remember your ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled: and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evils which you have committed.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God.”

You see that God’s mercy to them would not make them conceited or careless.  It would increase their shame and confusion when they found out what sort of a Lord He was against whom they had been rebellious; long-suffering and of tender mercy, returning good for evil to His disobedient children.  That feeling would awake in them more shame and more confusion than ever: but it would be a noble shame, a happy confusion, and tears of joy and gratitude, not of bitterness.  Such a shame, such a confusion, such tears, as the blessed Magdalene’s when she knelt at the Lord’s feet, and found that, instead of bating her and thrusting her away for all her sins, He told her to go in peace, pardoned and happy.  Then she knew the Lord; she found out His character—His name; for she found out that His name was love.  Oh, my friends, this is the great secret; the only knowledge worth living for, because it is the only knowledge which will enable you to live worthily—to know the Lord.  That knowledge will enable you to live a life which will last, and grow, and prosper for ever, beyond the grave, and death, and judgment, and eternities of eternities.  As the Lord Himself said, when He was upon earth, “This is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”  Therefore there is no use my warning you against sin, and telling you, do not do this, and do not do that, unless I tell you at the same time who is the Lord.  For till you know that The Good God is the Lord, you will have no real, sound, heartfelt reason for giving up your sins; and what is more, you will not be able to give them up.  You may alter your sort of sins from fear of this and that; but the root of sin will be there still; and if it cannot bear one sort of fruit it will bear another.  If you dare not drink or riot, you may become covetous and griping; if you dare not give way to young men’s sins, you will take to old men’s sins instead; if you dare not commit open sins you will commit secret ones in your thoughts.  Sin is much too stout a plant to be kept from bearing some sort of fruit.  As long as it is not rooted up the root will breed death in you of some sort or other; and the only feeling which can root up sin is to know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is your Lord, and that your Lord condescended to die upon the cross for you; that you must be the Lord’s, and are not your own, but bought with the price of His most precious blood, that you may glorify God with your body and your soul, which are His.

Just so, the blessed St. Augustine found that he could never conquer his own sins by arguing with himself, or by any other means, till he got to know God, and to see that God was the Lord.  And when his spirit was utterly broken; when he saw himself, in spite of all his wonderful cleverness and learning, to have been a fool and blind all along, though people round him were flattering him, and running after him to hear his learning; then the old words which he learnt at his mother’s knee came up in his mind, and he knew that God was the Lord after all, and that God had been watching him, guiding him, letting him go wrong only to show him the folly of going wrong, caring for him even when He left him to himself and his sins, and the sad ways of his sins; bearing with him, pleading with his conscience, alluring him back to the only true happiness, as a loving father with a rebellious and self-willed child.  And then, when St. Augustine had found out at last that God was his Lord, who had been taking the charge of him all through his heathen youth, he became a changed man.  He was able to conquer his sins; for God conquered them for him.  He was able to give up the profligate life which he had been leading; not from fear of punishment, but from the Spirit of God—the spirit of gratitude, honour, trust, and love toward God, which made him abide in God, and God abide in him.  To that blessed state may God of His great mercy bring us all.  To it He will bring us all unless we rebel and set up our foolish and selfish will against His loving and wise will.  And if He does bring us to it, it is little matter whether He brings us to it through joy or through sorrow, through honour or through shame, through the garden of Eden, or through the valley of the shadow of death.  For, my dear friends, what matter how bitter the medicine is, if it does but save our lives?

There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.  And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage.—John ii. 1, 2.

It is, I think, in the first place, an important, as well as a pleasant thing, to know that the Lord’s glory, as St. Paul says, was first shown forth at a wedding, at a feast.  Not at a time of sorrow, but of joy.  Not about some strange affliction or disease, such as is the lot of very few, but about a marriage, that which happens in the ordinary lot of all mankind.  Not in any fearful judgment or destruction of sinners, but in blessing wedlock, by which, whether among saints or sinners, mankind is increased.  Not by helping some great philosopher to think more deeply, or some great saint to perform more wonderful acts of holiness, but in giving the simple pleasure of wine to simple commonplace people, of whom we neither read that they were rich or righteous.  We do not even read whether the master of the feast ever found out that Jesus had worked a miracle, or whether any of the company ever believed in Him, on the strength of that miracle, except His mother and the disciples, and the servants, who were probably the poor slaves of people in a low or middling class of life.  But that is the way of the Lord.  He is no respecter of persons.  Rich and poor are alike in His sight; and the poor need Him most, and therefore He began his work with the poor in Cana, as He did in St. James’s time, when the poor of this world were rich in faith, and the rich of this world were oppressors and taskmasters.  So He does in every age.  Though no one else cares for the poor, He cares for them.  With their hearts He begins His work, even as He did in England sixty years ago, by the preaching of Whitfield and Wesley.  Do you wish to know if anything is the Lord’s work?  See if it is a work among the poor.  Do you wish to know whether any preaching is the true gospel of the Lord?  See whether it is a gospel, a good news to the poor.  I know no other test than that.  By doing that, by preaching the gospel to the poor, by working miracles for the poor, He has showed forth His glory, and proved Himself the true, and just, and loving Lord of all.

But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a taskmaster.  He does not demand from us: He gives to us.  He had been giving from the foundation of the world.  Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, and fruitful seasons had been his sending.  And now He was come to show it.  He was come to show men who it was who had been filling their heart with joy and gladness; who had been bringing out of the earth and air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which maketh glad the heart of man.  In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water is changed into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice.  He had been doing that all along in every vineyard and orchard; and that was His glory.  Now He was come to prove that; to draw back the veil of custom and carnal sense, and manifest Himself.  Men had seen the grapes ripen on the tree; and they were tempted to say, as every one of us is tempted now: “It is the sun and the air, the nature of the vine, and the nature of the climate, which makes the wine.”  Jesus comes and answers: “Not so.  I make the wine; I have been making it all along.  The vines, the sun, the weather, are only my tools wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into wine; and I am greater than they; I made them; I do not depend on them; I can make wine from water without vines or sunshine.  Behold, and drink, and see my glory without the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see it in the vineyard!  For I am now, even as I was in Paradise, The Word of the Lord God; and now, even as in Paradise, I walk among the trees of the garden, and they know me and obey me, though the world knows me not.  I have been all along in the world, and the world knows me not.  Know me now, lest you lose the knowledge of me for ever!”

Those of the Jews who received that message, as the disciples did, found out their ancient Lord, and clung to Him, and know now, in the world of spirits, that His message was indeed a true one.  Those who did not, lost sight of Him; to this day their eyes are blinded; to this day they have utterly forgotten that they have a Lord and Ruler, who is the Word and Son of God.  Their faith is no more like the faith of David than their understanding of the Scriptures is like his.  The Bible is a dead letter to them.  The kingdom and government of God is forgotten by them.  Of all God-worshipping people in the world, the Jews are the least godly, the most given up to the worship of this world, and the things which they can see, and taste, and handle, and, therefore, to covetousness, cheating, lying, tyranny, and all the sins which spring from forgetting that this world belongs to the Lord and that He rules and guides it, that its blessings are His gifts, and we His stewards, to use them for the good of all.  May God help, and forgive, and convert them!  Doubt not that He will do so in His good time.  But let us beware, my friends, lest we fall into the same sin.  Do not fancy that we are not in just the same danger.  It would be a cowardly thing of a preacher to call Jews, or heathens, or any other absent persons hard names, unless their mistakes and their sins were such as his own people wanted warnings against, ay, perhaps, had the very root of them in their hearts already.  And we have the root of the Jews’ sin in our own hearts.  Why is this one miracle read in our churches to this day, if we do not stand just as much in need of the lesson as those for whom it was first worked?  We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting who it is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons, love and marriage, and all the blessings of this life.  We, as well as the Jews, are continually fancying that these outward earthly things, as we call them in our shallow carnal conceits, have nothing to do with Jesus or His kingdom, but that we may compete, and scrape, even cheat and lie to get them, and when we have them, misuse them selfishly, as if they belonged to no one but ourselves, as if we had no duty to perform about them, as if we owed God no service for them.

And again, we are, just as much as the Jews were, in danger of spiritual pride; in danger of fancying that because we are religious, and have, or fancy we have, deep experiences and beautiful thoughts about God and Christ and our own souls, therefore we can afford to despise those who do not know as much as ourselves; to despise the common pleasures and petty sorrows of poor creatures, whose souls and bodies are grovelling in the dust, busied with the cares of this world, at their wits’ end to get their daily bread; to despise the merriment of young people, the play of children, and all those everyday happinesses which, though we may turn from them with a sneer, are precious in the sight of Him who made heaven and earth.  All such proud thoughts, all such contempt of those who do not seem as spiritual as we fancy ourselves, is evil.  It is from the devil, and not from God.  It is the same vile spirit which made the Pharisees of old say: “This people—these poor worldly drudging wretches—who know not the law, are accursed.”  And mind, this is not a sin of rich, and learned, and highborn men only.  They may be more tempted to it than others; but poor men, when they become, by the grace of God, wiser, more spiritual, more holy than others, are tempted, just as much as the rich, to despise their poor neighbours to whom God has not given the same light as themselves; and surely in them it shows ugliest of all.  A learned and high-born man may be excused for looking down upon the sinful poor, because he does not understand their temptations, because he never has been ignorant and struggling as they are.  But a poor man who despises the poor—he has no excuse.  He ought above all men to feel for them, for he has been tempted even as they are.  He knows their sorrows; he has been through their dark valley of bad food, bad lodging, want of work, want of teaching, low cares which drag the soul to earth.  Surely a poor man who has tasted God’s love and Christ’s light, ought, above all others, instead of turning his back on his class, to pity them, to make common cause with them, to teach them, guide them, comfort them, in a way no rich man can.  Yes; after all, it is the poor must help the poor; the poor must comfort the poor; the poor must teach and convert the poor.

See, in the epistle for this day, St. Paul makes no distinction between rich and poor.  This epistle is joined with the gospel for the day, to show us what ought to be the conduct of Christians, who believe in the miracle of Cana; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord in heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruits ripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of marriage, of the comforts which the heathen and the savage, as well as the Christian man, partake; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord in heaven who entered into the common joys and sorrows of lowly men, who was once Himself a poor villager, who ate with publicans and sinners, who condescended to join in a wedding feast, and increase the mere animal enjoyment of the guests.  And what is St. Paul’s command to poor as well as rich?  Read the epistle for this day and see.

You see at once that this epistle is written in the same spirit as our Lord’s words: by God’s Spirit, in short; the Spirit which brought the Lord Jesus so condescendingly to the wedding feast; the Spirit which made Him care so heartily for the common pleasures of those around Him.  My friends, these are not commands to one class, but to all.  Poor as well as rich may show mercy with cheerfulness, and love without dissimulation.  Poor as well as rich may minister to others with earnestness, and condescend to those of low estate.  Not a word in this whole epistle which does not apply equally to every rank, and sex, and age.

Neither are these commands to each of us by ourselves, but to all of us together, as members of a family.  If you will look through them they are not things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours; not experiences to be felt about our own souls: but rules of conduct to our fellow-men.  They are all different branches and flowers from that one root: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Do we live thus, rich or poor?  Can we look each other in the face this afternoon and say, each man to his neighbour: “I have behaved like a brother to you.  I have rejoiced at your good fortune, and grieved at your sorrow.  I have preferred you to myself.  I have loved you without dissimulation.  I have been earnest in my place and duty in the parish for the sake of the common good of all.  I have condescended to those of lower rank than myself.  I have—”  Ah, my dear friends, I had better not go on with the list.  God forgive us all!  The less we try to justify ourselves on this score the better.  Some of us do indeed try to behave like brothers and sisters to their neighbours; but how few of us; and those few how little!  And yet we are brothers.  We are members of one family, sons of one Father, joint-heirs with one Lord, the poor Man who sat eating and drinking at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and mixed freely in the joys and the sorrows of the poorest and meanest.  Joint-heirs with Christ; yet how unlike Him!  My friends, we need to repent and amend our ways; we need to confess, every one of us, rich and poor, the pride, the selfishness, the carelessness about each other, which keeps us so much apart, knowing so little of each other, feeling so little for each other.  Oh confess this sin to God, every one of you.  Those who have behaved most like brothers, will be most ready to confess how little they have behaved like brothers.  Confess: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, for I have not loved, cared for, helped my brothers and sisters round, who are just as much thy children as I am.”  Pray for the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of condescension, love, fellow-feeling; that spirit which rejoices simply and heartily with those who are happy, and feels for another’s sorrows as if they were its own.  Pray for it; for till it comes, there will be no peace on earth.  Pray for it; for when it comes and takes possession of your hearts, and you all really love and live like brothers, children of one Father, the kingdom of God will be come indeed, and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.