“SO IT IS” – Charles Spurgeon
“SO IT IS”
“Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know you it for your good.” Job 5:27.
Introduction
Thus closed a forcible speech by Eliphaz the Temanite—it may be called his “summing up.” He virtually says, “What I have testified in the name of my friends is no dream of theirs. Upon this matter we are specialists and bear witness to truth which we have made the subject of research and experience. Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know you it for your good.” By this declaration he sets forth his teaching with authority and presses it home. He persuades Job to consider what he had said, for it was no hasty opinion, but the ripe fruit of experience. When we speak what we know we expect to be heard. I shall not follow Eliphaz—I am only going to borrow his closing words and use them in reference to Gospel testimony which is to us a thing known and searched out. I shall use it in the following way. First, our text sets forth the qualification of the teacher. He must be a man who can say, “Lo this, we have searched it, so it is.” Secondly, we have the argument with the hearers—“We have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know you it for your good.” And lastly, we have here the exhortation for every enquirer who wants to know the truth concerning spiritual and eternal things: “Hear it, and know you it for your good.”
I. The Qualification of the Teacher
To begin with, I judge that these words may well describe the qualification of the teacher. He will be poorly furnished if he cannot run in the line which Eliphaz draws in the words of our text. He should have, first, an intimate knowledge of his subject. How can he teach what he does not know? When we come to talk about God and the soul, and sin and the precious blood of Jesus, and the new birth, and holiness and eternal life, the speaker who knows nothing about these things personally must be a poor driveller. Let him be quiet till he knows what he is to speak upon! Let him sweep chimneys, or cobble shoes, or break stones, or follow any other honorable calling—it will not be honest for him to profess to be a preacher of the Gospel unless he is acquainted with these sacred subjects.
I know well the place of the ministry of one who was ordained to be a preacher and drew the hire of which every true laborer is worthy. He delivered a discourse which greatly troubled the mind of a friend named Jonathan whom I knew and esteemed. The awakened young man went to him on the Monday and said, “Oh, Sir, your sermon last Lord’s Day has robbed me of my sleep and made me very anxious.” The preacher answered, “I am very sorry for it, Jonathan. I will never preach that sermon any more. If it troubles people, I will have no more of it, for I have something better to do than to make people miserable.” “But, Sir,” said the young man, “you preached about the new birth and you said we must be born again. In fact your text said so. What does it mean?” He answered, “Jonathan, I do not know anything about it and you are such a good fellow that I am quite sure you need not be afraid. If there is anything in being born again you had it when you were christened. In your Baptism you were made a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven. That is all I know about it.”
It is necessary that we say to some preachers, first of all—You must be born again, for, if not, you cannot interpret the new birth to the people. Without personal experience you will speak riddles of which you do not know the answers! The blind will lead the blind and both will fall into the ditch. There is a German story of a minister who had delivered himself very earnestly upon a vital theme and after the service he was waited upon by one in great distress of heart who was peculiar in his use of language. He generally said, “we,” when he should have said, “I.” And so he said to the minister, “Sir, if what you have been saying is true, what shall we do?” He did not mean to bring the minister into it, but the use of the word, “we,” implicated the pastor so much that he began to search—and searching he found that he had no part nor lot in the matter—and that he had been preaching what he himself had never felt! Have I anybody here who is doing this every Sabbath? A blind man who is teaching others about color and vision? A preacher of an unknown God? A dead man sent with messages of life? You are in a strange position, dear Friend. The Lord save you!
I wish that it might happen to you as it did to my dear friend, Mr. Haslam, whom God has blessed to the conversion of so many. He was preaching a sermon which he did not understand and while he preached it he converted himself! By God’s Grace he began to feel the power of the Holy Spirit and the force of Divine Truth. He so spoke that a Methodist in the congregation presently cried out, “The parson is converted!” And so the parson was. He admitted it and praised God for it—and all the people sang— “Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.”
His own utterances concerning Christ Crucified had been to him the power of God unto salvation! O Beloved, no man has any right to teach in the Sunday school, or preach, or pretend in any other way to be sent of God unless he has been so taught of the Holy Spirit that he has an intimate acquaintance with the Gospel! I must add that he should have a personal experience of it, so that he can say, “Lo this, we have searched it, so it is.” It is unseemly that an ignorant man should keep a school. It is not meet that a dumb man should teach singing. Shall an impenitent man preach repentance? Shall an unbelieving man preach faith? Shall an unholy man preach obedience to the Divine will? Shall one that is living in sin preach of freedom from sin? Surely any person will be an unsuitable herald of the glad tidings of Divine Grace who speaks what he has never tried and verified. Before you preach again, Brother, pray God to enable you to know in your own soul the Truth of that which you declare. Oh, that we may be born again and so preach regeneration! Oh, that we may exercise faith and then preach it! Surely it must be so! He who would learn to plow must not be apprenticed to one who never turned a furrow. We must know the Lord or we cannot teach His way.
It strikes me, next, that what is needed in a successful teacher is a firm conviction of the truth of these things growing out of his having tested them for himself. He must say, with emphasis, “So it is.” When I had found Christ and joined the Church, I began to teach in the Sunday school, but my little class of boys taught me more than I taught them! I was speaking to them, one day, about “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved,” and one of the boys said to me, “Teacher, have you believed?” I answered, “Yes.” “And have you been baptized?” “Yes.” “Then,” said he, “Teacher, you are saved.” I said, “I hope so.” Years ago it was a kind of fashion to say, “I hope so,” and I followed my seniors in this modest talk. The boy looked me straight in the face and said, “And don’t you know, Teacher?” Well, I felt that I did know and that I ought not to have said, “I hope so.” So I replied, “Yes, I do know it.” “Of course,” said the boy, “the text says so. If it ain’t true, well, of course, it ain’t true. But if it is true, well, it is true and nobody need hope about it.”
So it was. The boy used good logic. The Scripture says, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Therefore, he that believes and is baptized is saved. That is clear enough and let not the Believer say that “he hopes so,” but let him boldly assert that, “it is so!” You promise a man to pay him five pounds some day this week. Suppose you asked him, “Do you expect that I shall pay you that five pounds?” If he should answer, “I hope so,” you would know what he thought of you. And it is very much the same when we thus speak of the Lord—we dishonor Him when we say, “I hope so,” after He has said “it is so.” The Lord’s Word is true. Why do you “hope” about it? Believe it and enjoy it! But people will go hoping and hoping, and hopping and limping—as if to be lame were the proper thing. They had better put both feet to the ground and cry, “God has said it! I believe it! Glory be to His name, He shall have all the praise!” “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.”
When we teach others, we ought to have a firm conviction that what we teach is true beyond all question. You cannot use a lever if you have no fixed fulcrum. You must have a point to work upon or you cannot lift an ounce. So, in trying to teach another man, you must know that something or other is true. Infallibility used to be claimed for the pope, but Luther upset that nonsense. The Protestants then asserted that infallibility lay in the Bible and this became their fulcrum. It seems to me that now it is commonly thought that infallibility lies nowhere—or, if there is any such thing, it is to be found among young green horns, fresh from college, who do not know A from B in theology and yet criticize the Bible and cut it about as they choose. They are infallibles and we must all bow down before their idol of advanced thought! I prefer my Infallible Bible and I shall stick to it—God helping me—knowing that it has never led me astray and believing that it never will! O dear Teachers, know for a certainty what you teach and, if you do not know it to be true, hold your tongues about it! If you are not sure that your doctrine is true, be quiet till you are sure! A ministry of hesitation must be ruinous to souls. When Divine Truth is held fast, then let it be held forth and not till then.
Once more—a necessary qualification for a teacher of the Lord is earnestness and good will to the hearer. We must implore each one of our hearers to give earnest heed. We must cry to him with our whole heart, “Hear it, and know you it for your good.” Without love there can be no real eloquence. We must have a burning love for the souls of men if we would win them for Jesus. Unless our hearts desire their good, we may preach our tongues out, but we shall never bring our hearers to salvation by Christ. The best birdlime for these wild fowl is a longing desire for their present and eternal good! The great Savior’s heart is love and those who are to be saviors for Him must be of a loving spirit. True love will do the work when everything else has failed. A pastor has held the hearer by his heart long after his head has struggled away.
A preacher had managed, somehow, to offend one of his hearers and the angry man kept away from the place of worship for many a day. The preacher was not in the least aware that he had given offense, but when the matter came out, he went at once to set it right. The offended person had become settled in unbelief.
The preacher went to him and said that he had been sorry to miss him and that he had been made ill by learning that he had become an unbeliever. Tears were in his eyes and his voice was half choked as he said, “Do you know, friend David, I cannot sleep at nights for thinking about you? I am so concerned about your soul that I cannot rest unless you are converted.” The man had grown into the habit of blasphemy and if he had been addressed in any other way he would have cursed the minister and told him to go about his business—but that touch of real affection did it. “You, concerned about my soul? Then it is time that I became concerned about it, too”—that was the reasoning which passed through David’s mind. Oh, do let us love our hearers! Let us love them to Jesus! These are the bands that draw men to Jesus—the bands of love! And these are the cords that hold them to the Savior—the cords of a man! We must wish our people to hear the Truth of God, not because we have prepared discourses which we cannot afford to waste upon an empty chapel, but because we feel sure that if they will hear the Gospel it will do them good and save their souls! We must sigh and cry for the souls of our hearers! We must preach with an intent—and that intent must not fall short of their eternal salvation! We must go as with a sword in our bones till we see our hearers yield their hearts to Jesus! Knowledge of our subject avails not without love to our hearers!
II. The Argument for the Hearer
There are three ways of knowing, but only one sort is truly worth having. Many labor to know merely that they may know. These are like misers who gather gold that they may count it and hide it away in holes and corners. This is the avarice of knowledge—in some respects less mean than greed of gold and yet of the same order of vices. Selfishness makes men anxious to know. Mental selfishness urges them to toils most wearisome. Yet there may be much of this hoarded knowledge where there is no wisdom. Poor is the ambition to know—to know more than others, to know more today than we knew yesterday—to know what no one else knows. What of all this? To know, to know—this is the one thing with those who, like the horseleech live only to suck and to be swollen. To what purpose is knowledge buried in the brain like a crock of gold buried in a ditch? Such knowledge turns stagnant, like water shut up in a close pond—above mantled with rank weeds and below putrid, or full of loathsome life.
A second class aspire to know that others may know that they know. To be reputed wise is the Heaven of most mortals. To win a degree and wear half-a-dozen letters of the alphabet at the end of your name is the glory and immortality of many. To me the fashion seems cumbersome and vexatious—but the grand use of these appended letters is to let the world know that this is a man who knows more than the average of his fellows. After all, it is no very great thing to make your neighbors aware that you are somebody in scientific circles. It is more magnanimous to do without the certificates and let folks find out for themselves that you possess unusual information. One does not eat merely that others may know that you have had your dinner and one should not know merely to have it known that you know. Why not wear letters after your name to signify that you own half a million of money, or farm a thousand acres of land, or fatten a hundred hogs? This is the grand end of wearisome days and nights—that the knowing ones may know that you know! The third kind of knowledge is the one worth having. Learn to know that you may make other people know. This is not the avarice but the commerce of knowledge. Acquire knowledge that you may distribute it! Light the candle, but put it not under a bushel. Some are much buried under that bushel. My friend was half inclined to say a word or two for his Lord but he did not, for he remembered the big bushel marked, “TIMIDITY & Co.,” and so he kept his light out of the way. Destroy that bushel, since it destroys your usefulness! If God has given you a candle, let it burn and shine, for light is given that eyes may see it. If God has lighted you from on high, do not deny your light to any far or near. Know that others may know! Be taught that you may teach! This trading is gainful to all who engage in it. Thus much upon the first point—the qualification of a teacher is intimate knowledge, personal experience, confidence, earnestness and good will.
III. The Exhortation to the Enquirer
Secondly, the argument directed to the hearer is the experience of many, confirming the statement of one—“We have searched it, so it is.” Bacon has taught us from a mass of agreeing testimonies to infer a general truth. We are not, now, so foolish as to set up a theory and then hunt for facts to support it. No, but we gather the facts, first, and then deduce the theory from them. So here the three friends have made ample research and have arrived at certain conclusions—and they urge this reasoning upon Job. Unrenewed men cannot know much about Christ and His salvation unless it is through the testimonies of their friends who have felt the power of Divine Grace. It is ours, therefore, to be witnesses for Christ to them, that they also may believe the Truth of God which can save their souls.
Without further preface I should like to bear my own personal witness to a few things about which I am fully persuaded. I am not afraid of dogmatism, but I shall speak very positively, since I can say, “Lo this, we have searched it, so it is.” And my first witness is that sin is an evil and a bitter thing. I think, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I may speak for you and say, “We have searched this out, and we know that it is so.” We have seen sin prove injurious to our fellow men. “Who has woe, who has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine. Men of strength to mingle strong drink.” From where comes much of beggary but from dissipation? From where comes much of deadly disease but from uncleanness of life? Is not half the misery in the world the direct and distinct result of vice?
I will not harrow up your feelings by telling you of young men and young women who set out for better things, but who turned aside to vice and thus brought evil diseases into their bones. We could wish to forget their cries and moans with which they appalled us when they found that wild oats had to be reaped and that each ear of those sheaves was as a flake of fire. By-and-by the guilty soul has to meet its God—and what will be its terror! We know of ourselves and in ourselves, that sin is a serpent whose tooth infuses poison into the wound it makes. Sin brought some of us very low and nothing but Almighty Grace restored us. It made some of us sit between the jaws of despair and question whether it would not be better to put an end to our lives than continue to exist in such horrible gloom. Sin is that inquisition which deals in racks and fires and all manner of infernal tortures. No misery can for a moment be compared with the torment which follows upon sin! We get neither pleasure nor profit by sin, though it may dupe us with the name of both. Sin is “evil, only evil and that continually.” This we have searched, and so it is. We wish that others who are beginning life would accept our testimony and withhold their feet from the paths of the Destroyer. It cannot be necessary that everybody should taste the poison cup—may not our mournful experience of sin’s evil effects suffice for you? Sirs, you may search the neighborhood of sin from end to end, but you will never find a living joy therein. Therefore, flee from it, by God’s Grace.
Conclusion
I wish, next, to testify to the fact that repentance of sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ bring a wonderful rest to the heart and work a marvelous change in the whole life and character. There is such a thing as the new birth, for we have been born again—and this not a mere fancy or sentiment—but is a plain matter of fact. We know what it is to have passed from death unto life as surely as we know the difference between night and morning. Young man, have you any doubt about this? Will my testimony be of any use to you? Do you think I would stand here, knowingly, and tell you what is false? I hope you do me justice and admit that I aim at speaking the truth! There is such a thing as having the tastes all altered, the desires all changed, the fears removed, the hopes elevated, the passions subdued, the will conquered, the affections purified and the mind sanctified. There is such a thing as having perfect rest about all the past because sin is forgiven—perfect rest about the future, because we have committed our all to the hands of Christ who is able to keep us—and peace as to the present, because we belong to Jesus. I speak for thousands in this place tonight when I say that repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ bestow on men a wonderful delight and transform their characters by the Holy Spirit! That is worth knowing, is it not? Believe for yourselves and realize personally the power of faith. “We have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know you it for your good.”