NOT BOUND YET – Charles Spurgeon

NOT BOUND YET

“Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.” 2 Timothy 2:9.

You will observe, if you read the preceding verse, which, indeed, it would be wrong to sever from the text, that the doctrine of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was the sheet anchor of Paul’s comfort, as it was the great substance of his preaching. “Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my Gospel: wherein I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.” Perhaps we do not give sufficient prominence to the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Possibly, also, for this reason we do not fully grasp the idea of “the power of His Resurrection.”

Our Lord’s death was not the close of His career—He still passed onward. From the Cross to the sepulcher was still forward. With weeping and mourning they laid Him in the tomb—surely that was the finis of His course. Ah, no, He passed into the grave, it is true, but He also passed through it! The grave had hitherto seemed a cul-de-sac—a blind alley from which there was no exit. All the footsteps pointed to entrance, but none to return. It looked like a dread abyss swallowing all and offering passageway to none. Look what our Lord Jesus has done! He has made a tunnel of it for all His redeemed to pass into the Kingdom of God—we enter at the grave to emerge in the resurrection into eternal life!

In this lies part of the power of His Resurrection, that He has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers. It looked like an iron door or gate of death, but He has unhinged it, yes, He has taken it quite away. The grave was once “a charnel house to fence the relics of lost innocence,” but it is so no longer—the imprisoning stone is rolled away! By passing through death, our Lord has made a thoroughfare for us. We take death and the grave in transit, now—they do not hinder our advance to Glory, immortality and eternal life! Our course is always onward, whatever may lie in the way!

In the strength of that Truth of God, Paul, when he found himself in prison, expected to come out of it. When he saw great difficulties in the way to Heaven, he expected to go through those difficulties and to come out with gain at the further end thereof. This helped to cheer him in his darkest moments. His brave heart thus spoke within him and said, “What if I should be even dead and buried, I shall rise again! And if the Gospel should seem dead and buried, yet it will rise again! And if the particular cause which I am advocating in Rome should seem dead and buried, yet it must come to life again. I take courage from the great Truth of God that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead according to my Gospel.”

Friends, I think we, too, may encourage ourselves in our hour of sorrow. From the tomb of our Lord, we may gather gems of comfort! Though He died, yet He is dead no longer! And though He was buried, yet the sepulcher could not hold Him—and that same victorious power which brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, will also bring all His sheep with Him in due time—though they, also, shall descend into the same darkness of the tomb—

“Vain the stone, the watch, the seal
Christ has burst the gates of Hell!
Death in vain forbids His rise,
Christ has opened Paradise.
Lives again our glorious King!
‘Where, O death, is now your sting?’
Once He died our souls to save!
‘Where’s your victory, boasting grave?’
Soar we now where Christ has led,
Following our exalted Head;
Made like He, like He we rise;
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.”

I like much this self-forgetting sentence of the Apostle, “I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.” He is shut up in the gloomy dungeon at Rome. No hideous cells could be worse than Roman dungeons usually were. No prison is a desirable place, but a Roman prison was a very vestibule of death. Paul is not only in prison, but in bonds! His right arm is chained to the left hand of a soldier. He cannot do anything except under the inspection of his enforced companion, who, kindly as he may be disposed, cannot be so closely bound to him without causing him much discomfort. One would not like to be chained to the best man that ever lived, but much less to a rough Roman soldier!

Paul is in bonds as he writes. His fetters clank, but he makes light of them and finds more than sufficient comfort in the reflection, “I suffer as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.” I am going to talk to you upon that point with as much brevity as I can.

I. IN WHAT SENSE IS IT TRUE that, “the Word of God is not bound”?

Possibly a meditation upon this text may revive the spirits of some who are cast down. May the Holy Spirit, Himself, bless the subject to us! That the Word of God is not bound, is, at this time, true in many senses. And, first, it is not bound so that it cannot be preached. Paul could preach it even when in bonds and he did preach it, so that the Gospel was made known throughout Caesar’s palace—and there were saints in the imperial household! Many came to and fro into the Praetorian guard-room and heard the Word from the mouth of the Apostle. You may be quite sure that he never neglected to make known the message of the Gospel to all that visited him in his prison, so that the Word of God was not bound, even, with respect to himself!

And, dear Friends, whatever saddens us at this hour, we rejoice that the Word of God still finds a tongue and a voice with which to speak to the multitudes. That Word of God which, when there was nothing, spoke everything into existence, would still be able to speak for itself if not a single tongue voluntarily yielded itself to give forth speech for God! But, at the same time, there are many tongues which gladly proclaim the glorious Grace of God, the Word of God is not bound by reason of the lack of men to make it known—the true Apostolic succession continues among us and, “Christ is preached.” That everlasting Gospel will never be silenced! It will still be proclaimed to the ends of the earth and to the end of time. It shall never cease to bless the world so long as the sea pulses with tides and time is checkered with night and day—

“Nor shall Your spreading Gospel rest,
Till through the world Your truth has run;
Till Christ has all the nations blest
That see the light, or feel the sun.”

“The Word of God is not bound.” Nineteen centuries after Paul, we still have an open Bible and a free pulpit. Blessed be God for this! There have been a great many attempts to bind the Word of God, but yet it has not been bound. The preachers of the holy faith of Christ have been hunted to death. They have “wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented”—but, “the Word of God has not been bound.” When Hamilton was burned in Scotland, there was such an impetus given to the Gospel through his burning that the adversaries of the Gospel were known to say, “Let us burn no more martyrs in public, for the smoke of Hamilton’s burning has made many eyes to smart until they were opened.” So, no doubt, it always was! Persecution is a red hand which scatters the white wheat far and wide.

I need not remind you how the ashes of God’s martyred servant, cast into a brook, were borne onward to a river and afterwards to the sea—and by the sea they were carried to every shore! The Word of God is not bound by the binding of the preachers, but it happens to the persecuted as to Israel in Egypt—“The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied.” Probably the Church of God has never had better times, certainly she has never had happier times, than during periods of persecution! These were the days of her purity and, consequently, her glory. When she has been in the dark, God has been her light—and when she has been driven to and fro by the cruelties of men—then has she most effectually rested under the shadow of the Almighty!

“The Word of God is not bound” so as to be no longer a living, working power among men. Sometimes the enemies of the Truth of God have thought that they had silenced the last witness and then there has been an unexpected outburst—and the old faith has been to the front again. When in Scotland, under the reign of Moderates, the Gospel seemed to have died out, one earnest man, by Providence, fell in with a little book, Fisher’s, “Marrow of Divinity.” He was enlightened as to the pure Truth of God, began, at once, to preach it and found thousands to rejoice in it! That marrow has never been taken away from Scotland’s bones ever since, nor can it, nor shall it, let the devil do what he may!

A desperate and subtle attempt is now being made, but it will be assuredly foiled through the Wisdom of God. Yet, if it should come to this, that they should get rid of all the preachers of the Gospel—of the men who would thunder out God’s Word like Boanerges, or speak it out in tender tones as Barnabas—if the last of the faithful testifiers were consigned to the tomb, God would be sure to raise up another generation to publish His Truth, so that the Word of God would not lack a spokesman in the midst of the earth! The devil’s work is never done—one word from the Lord—and it is all undone in an instant!

The enemies of the Gospel have also attempted to bind it by the burning of books. I have in my possession an early copy of Luther’s sermons and I was told how very rare it was because, at first, the circulation was forbidden, and afterwards they were bought up and burned as soon as they were met with. And what did they do? They only put fire into Luther when they burned his sermons—they drove him to be more outspoken than he otherwise might have been—and so they helped the cause they thought to destroy!

It is impossible that the Truth of God can die. It has about it the Immortality of God. It is utterly impossible that the Truth of the Gospel shall die, since it is wrapped up in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns forever! He must see of the travail of His soul and must be satisfied for all the scoffs and agonies He has endured. Neither will less content Him than a Kingdom in which all others shall be merged. “The Word of God is not bound.” It will still be preached despite the scoffs of philosophers and the roaring of devils.

Do not, therefore, at any time sit down in despair because of evil times, for the times are always evil in one respect or another! Do not imagine that the Truth of God will become extinct and that the simple Gospel will be forgotten. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s Word shall never pass away! If the Gospel which we hold is of men, it will be overthrown— and let it be—let us see it die without regret! But if it is of God, none can overcome it and woe unto those who set themselves to do so!

If these things are so, why are we so timorous? If our Gospel is, as some think, only man’s voice, it shall die down into the eternal silences. But if it come from Heaven, it shall increase into the everlasting chorus of Heaven! Error shall be blown away like smoke from the chimney, or like March dust in the north wind—but God’s own Word is as eternal as God Himself! As the sun is not blown out by the tempest, nor the moon quenched by the damp of the night, so is not the Gospel destroyed by the sophistries of perverse minds! Therefore, let us comfort one another with these words, “The Word of God is not bound.” It will be preached till doomsday!

II. WHY IS THE WORD OF GOD NOT BOUND?

It is not bound because it is the voice of the Almighty. If the Gospel is, indeed, the Gospel of God, and these Truths are Revelations of God, Omnipotence is in them! It is not possible that the Omnipotent Word can be bound. Who will attempt the deed? Go bit the tempest! Put a chain about the hurricane, control the winds and bridle the raging sea! And when you have done these, you are but at the beginning of your task—you cannot, even then, hinder the Omnipotence of God which finds a chariot for itself in the Word of God and rides forth conquering and to conquer!

Moreover, the Holy Spirit puts forth His power in connection with the Word of God and, as He is Divine, He is unconquerable! He comes as a rushing, mighty wind—who can stop Him? He comes as fire—who can stand before His flaming vehemence? The Holy Spirit’s being with the Gospel is the reason of its great power. It is not that Truth, alone, is mighty and will prevail, but that the Spirit of Truth works mightily by it and causes it to subdue the minds of men.

If we had no Holy Spirit, what could we do? But as He has promised to take of the things of Christ, and to show them to His people, while He reproves the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, we know that “the Word of God is not bound.” The Holy Spirit manifests His own Sovereign will, doing what He pleases, even as the wind blows where it wishes—and this is the surest proof that His Word “is not bound.”

If you needed another reason less strong than these two, I should say, “How can it be bound while it is so necessary to men?” There are certain things which, if men need, they will have. I have heard say that in the old Bread Riots, when men were actually starving for bread, no word had such a terribly threatening and alarming power about it as the word, “Bread!” when shouted by a starving crowd. I have read a description by one who once heard this cry—he said he had been startled at night by a cry of, “Fire!” but when he heard the cry of, “Bread! Bread!” from those that were hungry, it seemed to cut him like a sword. Whatever bread had been in his possession, he must, at once, have handed it out.

So it is with the Gospel—when men are once aware of their need of it, there is no monopolizing it. None can make “a ring” or “a corner” over the precious commodity of heavenly Truth. Neither can anyone put this candle under a bushel so as to conceal its light. It cannot be hidden because there are so many that need it. They are pining, these myriads of London, these myriads all over the world—and though they hardly know it—yet there is a cry coming up forever from them for something which they can never find except in Christ! You may depend upon it—you cannot stop the Gospel being preached while there is this awful hunger after it in the souls of men. They must have it! You cannot cheat them into enduring a substitute for it.

You may set up your altars and put up your gimcrackeries, but they won’t have them instead of the Gospel! You may preach your speculations and tell them “modern thought” has done away with the old Gospel, but as soon as the Holy Spirit shows them their state by nature and their future danger, they sweep all this rubbish away! As the mower lays the grass in swaths to dry in the sun when he has passed up and down the field, so will the nations of the earth sweep away the green and flowery growths of human philosophy—and either give them to beasts to eat, or cast them into the oven! When men once know what they need, they will have it, despite priests or princes, scientists or skeptics. Oh, it must be so! This dire need of men must be met—the Word of the Lord cannot be bound.

I have one thing else to tell you. The Word of God is not bound because, when once it gets into men’s hearts, it works such an enthusiasm in them that you cannot bind it. You cannot silence lips which have been touched by a live coal from off the Altar of Christ! When the humblest woman gets to know the Gospel, you may say, “There, hold your tongue about it!” But you charge her in vain! She cannot but speak of what the Lord has done for her.

The converted man must talk to his work mates about it. You may say, “It would be very irregular for you to hold a meeting. It would be out of all character for a mere working man to stand up on the village green.” But he is very likely to do it. You let the man alone—he cannot help it! Look at the many that gathered together in the desert in the South of France in the old persecuting times! Why did they thus risk their lives? Why did they expose themselves to be ridden down by dragoons? They could not help it! They were eager for the Gospel! They were in danger of being broken on the wheel if they preached, or listened to preaching, but they could not help it—they must hear the Word of the Lord!

The preacher said, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel.” Their adversaries tortured them and sent them to the galleys. They threatened them with banishment and death, but all in vain. You had better let them go on, for you cannot stop them! In our own land there was no binding the Word of God, for those who knew it felt compelled to spread it. There is Master Bunyan. They have put him in prison and his family is nearly starving. They bring him up and they say, “You shall go out of prison, John, if you won’t preach. Go home and tag your laces, that is what you have to do, and leave the Gospel alone. What have you got to do with that?” But honest John answers, “I cannot help it. If you let me out of prison today, I will preach again tomorrow, by the help of God. I will lie here till the moss grows on my eyelids, but I will never promise to cease preaching the Gospel.” They could sooner bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion, than govern the movements of the Spirit of God in men!

The love of Christ is such that when it once pours into a man’s heart, it must run out at his lips in loving testimony! Has He not put rivers of Living Water into the midst of those who once drink of the life-giving stream? And they must speak of it, even till they die!

III. ONE OR TWO OTHER FACTS RUN PARALLEL TO THE TEXT

Paul is bound, but the Word of God is not bound. Read it thus—the preacher has had a bad week. He is full of aches and pains. He feels ill, but the Word of God is not ill. Oh, what a blessing that is! We preach a healthy Gospel even though we are unhealthy ourselves. In this, let the invalid rejoice! Dear suffering worker, your work shall not suffer, for it is a sound Gospel which you preach, though you, yourself, are hampered by a poor, weak body!

“What will become of the congregation when a certain minister dies?” Well, he will be dead, but the Word of God is not dead. God buries His workmen, but His work goes on. One light goes out, but another torch flames forth. Star by star sinks beneath the horizon, but another star appears on the other side to make glad the night. The Word of God is not dead when the preacher is dead!

“Oh, but the worker is so feeble!” The Word of God is not feeble. “But the worker feels so stupid.” But the Word of God is not stupid. “But the worker is so unfit.” But the Word of God is not unfit. You see it all comes to this—the preacher is bound, but the Word of God is not bound! The worker is feeble, but the Word of God is not feeble! You are nothing and nobody, but the Word of God cannot be said to be nothing and nobody—it is everything and everybody—it is girt about with All Power.

But you bitterly and truthfully lament that Christian men are, nowadays, very devoid of zeal. “All hearts are cold in every place.” The old fire burns low. But the Word of God is not cold, nor lukewarm, nor in any way losing its old fire! “Such and such a congregation is as frozen as the North Pole.” Yes, but the Word of God is not frozen! Divine Truth is not turned into an iceberg. Do not fret yourself into despair as to the condition of the Church, since the Lord lives! Things are bad, indeed, without His power, but then in the dark hour the Glory of the Lord will shine out.

“Yes,” says one, “but I am disgusted with the cases I have lately met with of false brethren.” Yes, but the Word of God is not false. “But they walk so inconsistently.” I know they do, but the Word of God is not inconsistent. “But they say they have disproved the faith.” Yes, they have disproved their own faith, but they have not disproved the Word of God for all that! The Word of God is not affected by the falsehood of men.

“If we believe not, He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” And till He denies Himself we need not make much account of who else denies Him. “Oh, but,” says one, “it is an awful thing to think of the spiritual ruin of so many that are round about us, who hear the Gospel and yet, after all, willfully refuse it, and die in their sins.” Truly this is a grievous fact. They appear to be bound by their sins like beasts for the slaughter, but the Word of God is not bound or injured.

It was said of old that it would be a sweet savor unto God in them that are saved, and in them that perish—in the one a savor of life unto life, and in the other a savor of death unto death. Is not the fact as the Lord, Himself, forewarned us? The ungodly reject the Gospel, but the Gospel has not, therefore, failed. O Sinners, you cannot overcome God’s Word! You have defeated its influence of love upon yourselves, but it is not defeated, after all. If you will not come to Christ, others will—the Spirit of the Lord shall bring them. Christ shall see of the travail of His soul.

If you turn away from His precious blood and refuse the redemption that He has worked, Christ shall not be disappointed as to the result of His passion. He shall see His seed and shall prolong His days. You may bite at the Gospel, but it shall be as when the viper in the fable gnawed at the file and destroyed his teeth. You may seek to put out the Gospel light, but you will be thrusting your hand into the fire and your own flesh shall be consumed!

Do not try to war against the Gospel! Choose some other adversary than the Lord God Almighty and His invincible Gospel. I pray you, cease to fight against the Lord, for the Word of God is not bound! However much you may try to bind it, you shall find that it has its liberty and it will, in the next world, have liberty to accuse and to condemn if you will not now give it liberty to persuade and to save you!

God bless you, dear Friends, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

—Charles Spurgeon