A HOME QUESTION AND A RIGHT ANSWER – Charles Spurgeon
A Home Question and a Right Answer
“From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” — John 6:66-69
Introduction: The Call to Perseverance
Brethren, we believe that the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that has clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger. We also believe that he that believes in Christ “has everlasting life,” and consequently must live forever. The living water which Christ gives a man shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. Our Lord has said of His sheep that they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hands. Yet we know that if any man draws back, the Lord will have no pleasure in him, and we are sure that, “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Therefore, we very heartily sing the verse in one of our hymns:
“We have no fear that You should lose
One whom eternal love could choose;
But we would never this grace abuse,
Let us not fall! Let us not fall!”
We consider that it would be an abusing of this grace if we were to grow careless, presumptuous, high-minded, and imagine that for ourselves personally it would not be possible to become apostates, or even to turn aside a little from the right way. We believe the truth of the final perseverance of the saints concerning the true people of God, but the question comes to our heart: Are we such? Is there in us the incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever? And how are we to know that we are such but by this very perseverance which, while it is an effect of grace, is also one of the most certain tokens of it? For there is not the true grace of God in the heart where there is no perseverance in grace even unto the end. “He that endures to the end shall be saved.”
But what if we should only have the transient gleams of temporary illumination, and should relapse into a thick Egyptian night? Here is cause enough for holy fear. Come then, brethren, trusting in the immutable grace and love and power of God, let each man, nevertheless, examine himself, and let this be a time of heart-searching. Say not this is out of place when we are just gathering around the table of the Lord, for is it not written, “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread”? Let us get ready to come to the festival of our Lord’s Supper by putting our Lord’s question, each one to his own heart, and trying to answer it by the help of God’s own Spirit.
I. The Reason for the Question: Why Did Jesus Ask the Twelve?
First, let us consider the reason for the question: Why did Christ ask of the twelve, “Will you also go away?” He would not have caused them needless pain. He had a wise reason for trying them with such an inquiry. It was, first, because it was a season of defection. “From that time many went back, and walked no more with Him.” You will find, I think, that in all churches there are times of flocking in, when many fly to the church like doves to their windows. But happy is that church which never has a time of flying out, when numbers who have been tested fail, and are no more to be found. Churches have summers, like our gardens, and then all things are full, but then come their winters, and alas, what emptying is seen! Have we not all seen the flood when the tide has come up far upon the beach, and have we not all marked the ebb when every wave has seemed to fall short of that which preceded it? Such ebbs and floods there are in the history of the kingdom of Christ. One day, “The kingdom of God suffers violence and every man presses into it.” At another time, men seem to be ashamed of the Christian faith, and they wander off into a thousand delusions, and the church is diminished and brought low by heresy, by worldliness, by lukewarmness, and by all sorts of evils. Often may the chronicle run thus, “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled.”
It is well, then, at times when those that did run well are hindered, that the Master should say to those who for a while remain steadfast, “Will you also go away?” Ah, dear friends, some of you are very steadfast now while this church flourishes, but how would you be if the pastor were dead, or his name in ill-repute? How would you be if the attendance on the means of grace grew slack? How would you be if there was a decline in all the work of the church? Have you backbone enough in you to be faithful if all others were faithless? Is there the real grit about you? Could you dare to be Daniels, and “dare to stand alone”? Can you fight a losing battle? Can you stand in the gap and be the last of a few heroic men who will defend the pass against all comers? Alas, what numbers swim with the tide! How few can swim against the current! How readily are men seized with panic, and run for it with might and main if they see others hastening from the battle. How few can hold the bridge like Horatius in the brave days of old! Well may the Savior ask the question of us tonight, for we are as frail and fickle as others. Well may He ask it now, for worse times than these may be drawing near, “Will you also go away?”
It was a time, too, of defection among disciples. I call your attention to the use of that word here. “From that time many of His disciples went back.” Disciples? Yes, not merely camp-followers, not the mob that hung upon His skirts for the sake of the loaves and fishes, but some of His disciples went back. Those of nobler spirit, who had listened to His words, and for a while had professed to call Him, “Master and Lord,” even some of these deserted the standard. Their name remains; they are called “disciples” still, though they have gone back. and this sets forth the grievous guilt of such men and women as enter into the church, and then after a while turn aside to false doctrine or to sin. They depart with their prince’s uniform upon their backs, and carry the livery of Christ into the service of Satan. The stamp of a disciple is upon each of them still, though they are renegades and perverts. They will be judged as having been what they professed to be, and heavy will be their sentence as apostates.
We read of “Simon, the leper.” He is called “the leper” after He had been healed. Here, on the other hand, are some who bear their good name even after their villainy has been discovered, and this helps to make their treachery the more glaring. Just as the name “harlot” stuck to Rahab after she had become an honest woman and a believer, so does a good name stick to one after it has ceased to be true, and it remains as a reminder of their fearful folly.
Go and live down Turncoat Lane, hide yourself away as much as you can, but whenever you come into the street, if they do not say it to your face, the neighbors will whisper behind your back, “There goes one who was a disciple. There is one who professed to be a follower of Christ, but he has turned his back upon his Lord.” The memory of your profession will stick to you through life. It will stick to you throughout eternity. If you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, some flecks of the wool will hang about you long after you have dragged the fleece over your head. Damnable apostate shall be your brand, even when you are cast away from the face of God forever.
II. The Question Itself
Now, the question itself: The Master pressed it upon the disciples—“Will you also go away?” He might well press the question, for one of them would certainly do so. He said, “I have chosen you twelve!” Not many—twelve. “I have chosen you,” a very prudent chooser, much better able to judge than any of His ministers. “I have chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil.”
Are our pastors and elders likely to make a better selection? Is it likely that the percentage of deceit is less among us than in the apostolic college? I would not like to say—it would be wrong to say—that one out of every twelve of church members is a Judas. What right have I to say it? But if I were called upon to depose that I am certain they are not, I dare not make so bold an assertion. I fear that the average of mankind in any place would, in all probability, be much the same as in our Lord’s Day, and possibly there may be a worse state of things in London than in Judea and Galilee.
Still, if we conceive our case to be improved, yet a measure of danger exists. Is it true in the case of only one member of this church that he will betray Christ? If it is, then let the question begin at the pulpit, and go round to the youngest member, “Lord, is it I?”—a question suitable for this table, for at this table of fellowship, it was asked by every one of the twelve, “Lord, is it I?”
Certainly, some among us—someone among us—will deny or sell his Master. God grant it be not I! Let each one breathe that prayer.
Besides, the Master knew that all of them might do so. All of them might go away from Him, apart from His grace; indeed, all of them would. There stood Peter, this very Peter who gave such a bold answer to the question, and the Master knew that there was enough in Peter to have made him as faithless as Judas if it had not been for His upholding grace.
Ah, brothers and sisters, when we see others fall today, let us say, “It may be my case tomorrow!” Is there not the same heart, the same nature, the same tendency to sin? Have we not the same weakness? Are we not exposed to the same temptations? Is there not the same devil craftily searching out our infirmities, that he may work upon them? Are we not all in danger? I fear that he is especially in jeopardy who will say tonight, “I am a man of experience. I am out of harm’s way.”
If there is a brother among us who says, “These warnings are not meant for me,” he is probably the man who will disgrace that holy name by which he is named. If there is a deacon, an elder, a grey-headed Christian man, a venerable, believing woman, who shall be saying, “I have nothing to fear from temptation. I have passed out of the realm of caution and watchfulness,” I stand in doubt of such. Confident friend, I fear that you are the man. This carnal confidence, this proud presumption as to yourself, should be a caution to you, for these things are the smoke, which denote a smoldering fire. “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
The Master put the question, because He knew that it ought to come home to every heart among the twelve. Moreover, He put the question to them because if they turned aside it would be especially sad. I do not read that Jesus said anything about those that had already gone back. He alludes to them by the use of the word “also,” but He does not seem to have run after them to beg them to return. He knew what they were, and knew that they were best apart from Him. When the chaff was blown away, it was only the fulfillment of John the Baptist’s words, “His fan is in His hand, and He shall thoroughly purge His floor.” So He suffered the chaff to go to its own place.
But when the Master looked at the twelve, then He said with holy care and anxiety, “Will you? Will you also go away?” As much as to say, “If you go away who have been with Me from the beginning, who have been chosen by me to be eyewitnesses of My life, if you that have been near My inmost heart, and shared My trials and My joys—if you go away it will be sin indeed.”
III. The Answer: Peter’s Response
Lastly, let us consider the answer, the answer which quick-voiced Peter gave—the answer which I hope we are prepared to give to our divine Leader: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
It is threefold. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” This is the first answer. Observe that Peter does not appear to think it possible, or think it less than abominable, for a man to go back. For the natural answer to Peter’s question, “To whom shall we go?” is “Go back.” No, but Peter does not tolerate the idea of going back.
I ask you, my beloved brother in Christ, can you tolerate it? Can you? Can you? I might address myself to a brother who was once among the profane and the drunken, who is now among the most earnest of us, and I might ask him—Brother, would you go back? I am sure that the thought of the rack would be more pleasant than the idea of returning to his old haunts. I might address myself to another who was fond of every form of gaiety, spending his money for that which was not bread, and his labor for that which did not satisfy him, and now he will be found among us tonight, happiest among the happy in the service of his Master. I inquire of him—Brother, will you go back? Would you like to enjoy all your gay life again? It would be death to you.
When Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress thought about going back, he remembered that he had no armor for his back. He had a breastplate, he was covered from head to foot by his shield, but there was nothing to protect his back. And therefore if he retreated, the adversary could skewer him with a javelin in a moment. So he thought that, bad as it was to go forward, it would be worse to go backward, and therefore he bravely cut a path for himself straight onward for glory.
Look at that fact whenever you are tempted. Do not endure the idea of turning tail in the day of battle! May retreat be impossible to you. God make it impossible by His grace!
But then to whom should we go? I was ruminating in my mind the other day—“Could I so false, so faithless prove to quit Your service and Your love, Where, Lord, could I, Your presence shun, Or from Your dreadful glory run?”
Where could I retire if I would avoid my lifework, and cease witnessing for Jesus? If I was on board ship, and a storm came, the sailors would say, “He is the Jonah.” I know they would. If I forsook my God and His cause, the lowest and meanest would point at me as a turncoat. If I were to cross the western continent, and hide away in the back settlements, it is ten to one that if I went into the most remote log cabin somebody would spy me out, and say, “Why, you are the man whose sermons I read in our newspapers. How did you come to be here?” In the loneliest spots on earth, where men speak the English tongue, my own sermons would serve as a hue and cry, if not as a writ of arrest. I should be sure to hear the question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and how could I answer?
Where could I go? No hiding place remains for me. I must serve God forever. So is it with you in a degree, dear friends. You cannot get away from Jesus. You that are disciples have committed yourselves to Christ. There is nowhere for you to go. Suppose you were to try infidelity. You know too much, you have felt too much. Unbelief would not ease you, whatever it may do with others. Be a free-thinker! Well, you are made of the wrong stuff for that now, your conscience would trouble you. Suppose you became a Romanist. Would forms and ceremonies content you? No. Of all the people in the world that cannot be Romanists, commend me to Baptists. A few have joined the church of Rome—so few, that I never knew but one. You cannot convert these dreadful Anabaptists, they are too positive, and too much accustomed to prefer their own judgment to the directions of a ghostly father.
Conclusion
My brethren, I do not know where you can go if you leave Jesus and the truth. You can go down to the bottomless pit, if you will, but you will have no rest there, for the lost ones will cry, “Have you come here? Why, you were at the Lord’s Table, were you not? You are the people that used to give away tracts. Did we not hear you preach at the corner of the streets?”
It will be an uneasy thing for you to be lost, I tell you, sirs, ten times worse than for others, for the hiss of those who never professed religion will follow you throughout eternity, and their words will burn like coals of juniper when they cry, “Hypocrite! Apostate! You knew the truth and did it not!”
There is nowhere else for us to go. If we are weary of our Master we cannot get another, where can we find another as good as He is? Shall we go back, or shall we get right with Him? Let us go at once and tell Him how foolish we have been. Let us beg Him to keep us in His house. “Dismiss me not from Your service, Lord.” I am not worthy even to unloose the laces of Your shoes, but let me be Your servant, for whom else can I serve? How else can I live? What other joy remains for me but to do something for Your blessed name?
Let us resolve by God’s grace to hold fast to Him forever. We believe and are sure that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and we will follow Him to the end.