THE INFALLIBILITY OF GOD’S PURPOSE – Charles Spurgeon

THE INFALLIBILITY OF GOD’S PURPOSE

“But He is of one mind, and who can make Him change? And whatever His soul desires, that He does.” Job 23:13. IT is very advantageous to the Christian mind to frequently consider the deep and unsearchable attributes of God. The beneficial effect is tangible in two ways, exerting a sacred influence both on the judgment and the heart. In respect to the one, it tends to confirm us in those good old orthodox doctrines which lie as the basis of our faith. If we study man, and make him the only object of our research, there will be a strong tendency in our minds to exaggerate his importance. We shall think too much of the creature and too little of the Creator, preferring that knowledge which is to be found by observation and reason, to that divine truth which revelation alone could make known to us. The basis and groundwork of Arminian theology lies in attaching undue importance to man, and giving God the second place rather than the first. Let your mind dwell for a long time upon man as a free agent, upon man as a responsible being, upon man, not so much as being under God’s claims, as having claims upon God, and you will soon find in your thoughts a set of crude doctrines. You will support these doctrines with the letter of some few isolated texts in Scripture which may be speciously quoted, but, which really in spirit are contrary to the whole tenor of the Word of God! Thus your orthodoxy will be shaken to its very foundations, and your soul will be driven out to sea without peace or joy. brothers and sisters, I am not afraid that any man, who thinks worthily about the Creator, stands in awe of His adorable perfections, and sees Him sitting upon the throne doing all things according to the counsel of His will, will go far wrong in his doctrinal sentiments. He may say, “My heart is fixed, O God” and when the heart is fixed with a firm conviction of the greatness, the omnipotence, the divinity of Him whom we call God, the head will not wander far from truth! Another happy result of such meditation is the steady peace, the grateful calm it gives to the soul. Have you been a long time at sea, and has the continual motion of the ship sickened and disturbed you? Have you come to look upon everything as moving, till you scarcely put one foot before the other without the fear of falling down, because the floor rocks beneath your path? With what delight do you put your feet at last upon the shore and say, “Ah, this does not move! This is solid ground. Though the tempest howls, this island is safely moored. She will not start from her bearings; when I tread on her she will not yield beneath my feet.” Just so is it with us when we turn from the evershifting, often boisterous tide of earthly things to take refuge in the Eternal God who has been “our dwelling place in all generations.” The fleeting things of human life, and the fickle thoughts and showy deeds of men are as moveable and changeable as the waters of the treacherous deep; but, when we mount up, as it were, with eagles’ wings to Him who sits upon the circle of the earth—before whom all its inhabitants are as grasshoppers—we nestle in the Rock of Ages which from its eternal socket never starts, and in its fixed immovability never can be disturbed!

Or to use another simile; you have seen little children running round and round, and round till they get giddy; they stand still a moment, and everything seems to be flying round about them, but by holding fast and still, and getting into the mind, the fact that, that to which they hold at least is firm, at last the world grows still again, and the world ceases to whirl. So you and I have been these six days like little children running round in circles, and everything has been moving with us, till perhaps, as we came to this place this morning, we felt as if the very promises of God had moved, as if providence had shifted, our friends had died, our kindred passed away, and we came to look on everything as whirling—nothing 2 2 firm, nothing fixed. Brothers and sisters, let us get a good grip today of the immutability of God! Let us stand still awhile, and know that the Lord is God. We shall see at length that things do not move as we dreamed they did—“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens.” There is still fixedness in that which seems most fickle. That which appears to be most dreamy has a reality, inasmuch, as it is a part of that divinely substantial scheme which God is working out, the end whereof, shall be His eternal glory! It will cool your brain, it will calm your heart, my brothers and sisters; it will make you go back to the world’s fight, quiet and composed! It will make you stand fast in the day of temptation, if now, through divine grace, you can come near to God, who is without variableness or shadow of a turning, and offer Him the tribute of your devotion. The text will be considered by us this morning—first, as enunciating a great general truth; and, secondly, out of that general truth, we shall fetch another, upon which we shall enlarge, I trust, to our comfort. I. The text may be regarded as TEACHING A GENERAL TRUTH. We will take the first clause of the sentence, “He is of one mind.” 1. Now, the fact taught here is, that in all the acts of God in providence, He has a fixed and a settled purpose. “He is of one mind.” It is eminently consolatory to us, who are God’s creatures, to know that He did not make us without a purpose, and that now, in all His dealings with us, He has the same wise and gracious end to be served. We suffer; the head aches; the heart leaps with palpitations; the blood creeps sluggishly along, where its healthy flow should have been more rapid. We lose our limbs, crushed by accident; some sense fails us; the eyes are eclipsed in perpetual night; our mind is racked and disturbed; our fortunes vary; our goods disappear before our eyes; our children, portions of ourselves, sicken and die. Our crosses are as continual as our lives; we are seldom long at ease; we are born to sorrow, and certainly it is an inheritance of which we are never deprived; we suffer continually. Will it not reconcile us to our sorrows, that they serve some end? To be scourged needlessly, we consider to be a disgrace, but, to be scourged if our country were to be served, we should consider an honor, because there is a purpose in it. To suffer the maiming of our bodies, because of some whim of a tyrant, would be a thing hard to bear, but if we administer thereby, to the happiness of our families, or to the glory of our God, we would be content not to be mutilated once, but, to be cut piecemeal away so that His great purpose might be answered! O, believer, always look, then, on all your sufferings as being parts of the divine plan, and say, as wave upon wave rolls over you, “He is of one mind!” He is still carrying out His one great purpose! None of these comes by chance; none of these happens to us out of order, but everything comes to us according to the purpose of His own will, and answers the purpose of His own great mind. We have to labor, too. How hard do some men labor who have to toil for their daily bread! Their bread is saturated with their sweat; they wear no garment which they have not woven out of their own nerves and muscles. How sternly, too, do others labor who have with their brain to serve their fellowmen or their God! How have some heroic missionaries spent themselves, and been spent in their fond enterprise! How have many ministers of Christ exhausted not simply the body, but the mind! Their hilarity, so natural to them, has given place to despondency, and the natural effervescence of their spirits has at last died out into oneness of soul, through the desperateness of their ardor. Well, and sometimes this labor for God is unrequited. We plow, but the furrow yields no harvest. We sow, but the field refuses the grain, and the devouring bellies of the hungry birds alone are satisfied therewith! We build, but the storm casts down the stones which we had quarried, with Herculean efforts, piling one on another. We sweat, we toil, we fail. How often do we come back weeping because we have toiled, as we think, without success! Yet, Christian, you have not been without success, for “He is of one mind.” All this was necessary to the fulfillment of His one purpose! You are not lost; your labor has not rotted under the clods. All, though you see it not, has been working together towards the desired end! Stand upon the beach for a moment. A wave has just come up careening in its pride. Its crown of froth is spent. As it leaps beyond its fellow, it dies. It dies. And now another, and it dies, and now another, and it dies. Oh, weep not, deep sea! Be not sorrowful, for though each wave dies, yet you prevail! O mighty ocean! Onward does the 3 3 flood advance till it has covered all the sand, and washed the feet of the white cliffs! So is it with God’s purpose. You and I are only waves of His great sea; we wash up, we seem to retire as if there had been no advance. Another wave comes, still each wave must retire as though there had been no progress; but, the great divine sea of His purpose is still moving on. He is still unique and carrying out His plan! How sorrowful it often seems, to think how good men die! They learn through the days of their youth, and often before they come to years to use their learning, they are gone. The blade is made and tempered in many a fire, but before the foeman uses it, it snaps! How many laborers, too, in the Master’s vineyard, who when by their experience they were getting more useful than ever, have been taken away just when the Church needed them most? He that stood upright in the chariot guiding the steeds, suddenly falls back, and we cry, “My Father, my Father, the horsemen of Israel and the chariot thereof!” Still notwithstanding all, we may console ourselves in the midst of our grief, with the blessed reflection, that everything is a part of God’s plan. He is still unique—nothing happens which is not a part of the divine scheme! To enlarge our thoughts a moment, have you ever noticed, in reading history, how nations suddenly decay? When their civilization has advanced so far, that we thought it would produce men of the highest mold, suddenly old age begins to wrinkle its brow, its arm grows weak, the scepter falls, and the crown drops from the head, and we have to say, “Is not the world gone back again?” The barbarian has sacked the city, and where once everything was beauty, now there is nothing but ruthless bloodshed and destruction! But, my brothers and sisters, all those things were but the carrying out of the divine plan! Just as you may have seen sometimes upon the hard rock the lichen spring—as soon as the lichen grows grand—it dies. But why? It is because its death prepares the moss, and the moss which is feebler compared with the lichen growth, at last increases till you see before you the finest specimens of that genus. But then the moss decays. Yet, weep not for its decaying; its ashes shall prepare a soil for some plants of a little higher growth, and as these decay, one after another, race after race, they at last prepare the soil, upon which even the goodly cedar itself, might stretch out its roots! And so has it been with the race of men—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome have crumbled, each and all—when their hour had come, to be succeeded by a better. And if this race of ours should ever be eclipsed, if the Anglo Saxons’ boasted pride should yet be stained, even then, it will prove to be a link in the divine purpose. Still, in the end, His one mind shall be carried out; His one great result shall be thereby achieved.

Not only the decay of nations, but the apparent degeneration of some races of men—and even the total extinction of others—forms a part of the fixed purpose of God! In all those cases there may be reasons of sorrow, but faith sees grounds of rejoicing. To gather up all in one, the calamities of earthquake, the devastations of storm, the exterminations of war, and all the terrible catastrophes of plague have only been co-workers with God—slaves compelled to tug the galley of the divine purpose across the sea of time! From every evil, good has come, and the more the evil has accumulated, the more has God glorified Himself in bringing out at last His grand, His everlasting design! This, I take it, is the first general lesson of the text—in every event of providence, God has a purpose. “He is of one mind.” Mark, not only a purpose, but only one purpose—for all history is but one! There are many scenes, but it is one drama; there are many pages, but it is one book; there are many leaves, but it is one tree; there are many provinces, yes, and there are many lords and rulers, yet, there is but one empire, and God is the only Potentate! “O, come let us worship and bow down before Him—for the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods!” 2. “Who can make Him change?” This is the second clause of the sentence, and here I think we are taught the doctrine that the purpose of God is unchanged. The first sentence shows that He has a purpose, the second shows that it is incapable of change. “Who can make Him change?” There are some shallow thinkers who dream that the great plan and design of God was thrown out of order by the fall of man. The fall they consider all accidental circumstances—not intended in the divine plan, and so, God being placed in a delicate predicament of requiring to sacrifice His justice or His mercy, used the plan of the Atonement of Christ as an expedient. Brothers and sisters, it may be lawful to use such terms—it may be lawful to you—it would not be to me! For am I persuaded that the very fall of man was a part of the divine purpose—that even the sin of Adam, though he did it freely—was, nevertheless, contemplated 4 4 in the divine scheme, and was, by no means, such a thing as to involve a digression from His primary plan! Then came the deluge and the race of man was swept away, but God’s purpose was not affected by the destruction of the race. In later years His people Israel forsook Him and worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth, but His purpose was not changed any more by the defection of His chosen nation, than by the destruction of His creatures! And when later the gospel was sent to the Jews, and they resisted it and Paul and Peter turned to the Gentiles, do not suppose that God had to take down His book and make an erasure or an amendment! No, the whole was written there from the beginning! He knew everything of it— He has never altered a single sentence nor changed a single line of the divine purpose! What He intended the great picture to be—that it shall be at the end! And where you see some black strokes which seem not in keeping, these shall yet be toned down; and where there are some brighter dashes, too bright for the somber picture, these shall yet be brought into harmony. And when in the end God shall exhibit the whole, He shall elicit both from men and angels tremendous shouts of praise, while they say, “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Your ways, You King of Saints! You only are holy. All nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments are made manifest.” Where we have thought His government wrong, there shall it prove most right, and where we dreamed He had forgotten to be good, there shall His goodness be most clear! It is a sweet consolation to the mind of one who muses much upon these deep matters that God has never changed in any degree from His purpose; and the result will be, notwithstanding everything to the contrary, just precisely in every jot and tittle, what He foreknew and foreordained it should be! Wars may rise and other Alexanders and Caesars may spring up, but He will not change! Now, nations and peoples lift up yourselves and let your parliaments pass your decrees, but He changes not! Now, rebels, foam at the mouth and let your fury boil, but He changes not for you! Oh, nations and peoples and tongues—and you round earth—you still spin on your orbit, and all the fury of your inhabitants cannot make you move from your predestinated pathway! Creation is an arrow from the bow of God, and that arrow goes on, straight on, without deviation to the center of that target which God ordained that it should strike. His plan is never varied! He is without variableness or shadow of a turning. Albert Barnes very justly says, “It is, when properly understood, a matter of unspeakable consolation that God has a plan—for who could honor a God who had no plan—who did everything haphazardly? It is matter of rejoicing that He has one great purpose which extends through all ages, and embraces all things, for then everything falls into its proper place, and has its appropriate bearing on other events. It is a matter of joy that God does execute all His purposes—for as they are all good and wise—it is desirable that they should be executed! It would be a calamity if a good plan were not executed. Why, then, should men murmur at the purposes or the Decrees of God?” 3. The text also teaches a third general truth of God. While God had a purpose, and that purpose has never changed, the third clause teaches us that this purpose is sure to be effected. “Whatever His soul desires, that He does”; He made the world out of nothing; there was no resistance there. “Light be,” He said, and light was. There was no resistance there. “Providence be,” said He, and providence shall be. And when you shall come to see the end as well as the beginning, you shall find that there was no resistance there. It is a wonderful thing how God effects His purpose while still the creature is free. They who think that predestination and the fulfillment of the divine purpose is contrary to the free agency of man, know not what they say, nor what they affirm. It were no miracle for God to effect His own purpose if He were dealing with sticks and stones, with granite and with trees—but this is the miracle of miracles—that the creatures are free, absolutely free, and still the divine purpose stands! Herein is wisdom! This is a deep unsearchable mystery. Man walks without a leash, yet, treads in the very steps which God ordained him to tread in, as certainly as though manacles had bound him to the spot! Man chooses his own seat, selects his own position, guided by his will he chooses sin, or guided by divine grace he chooses right, and yet, in his choice, God sits as sovereign on the throne; not disturbing, but still overruling, and proving Himself to be able to deal as well with free creatures, as with creatures without freedom, as able to effect His purpose when He has endowed men with thought and reason, and judgment, as when He had only to deal with the solid rocks and with the imbedded sea! O Christians! 5 5 You shall never be able to fathom this, but, you may wonder at it. I know there is an easy way of getting out of this great deep—either by denying predestination altogether, or by denying free agency altogether— but, if you can hold the two, if you can say, “Yes, my consciousness teaches me that man does as he wills, but my faith teaches me that God does as He wills, and these two are not contrary, the one to the other, and yet, I cannot tell how it is. I cannot tell how God effects His end. I can only wonder and admire, and say, ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.’” Every creature free and doing as it wills, yet, God more free still, and doing as He wills—not only in heaven, but among the inhabitants of this lower earth! I have thus given you a general subject upon which I would invite you to spend your meditations in your quiet hours. I am persuaded that sometimes to think of these deep doctrines will be found very profitable. It will be to you like the advice of Christ to Simon Peter, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” You shall have a draught of exceedingly great thoughts, and exceedingly great graces if you dare to launch out into this exceedingly deep sea, and let out the nets of your contemplation at the command of Christ! “Behold, God is great.” “O Lord, how great are Your works, and Your thoughts are very deep! A brutish man knows not, neither does a fool understand this.” II. I now come to the second part of my subject, which will be, I trust, cheering to the people of God. From the general doctrine that God has a plan, that this plan is invariable, and that this plan is certain to be carried out, I draw the most precious doctrine that IN SALVATION GOD IS OF ONE MIND—and who can make Him change? And what His heart desires, that He does. Now, mark, I address myself at this hour, only to you who are the people of God. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart? Is the spirit of adoption given to you whereby you can say, “Abba, Father”? If so, draw near, for this truth is for you! Come then, my brothers and sisters—in the first place, let us consider that God is of one mind. Of old, my soul, He determined to save you. Your calling proves your election, and your election teaches you that God ordained to save you. He is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. He is of one mind. He saw you ruined in the fall of your father Adam, but His mind never changed from His purpose to save you. He saw you in your nativity. You went away from the womb speaking lies. Your youthful follies and disobedience He saw, but never did that gracious mind alter in its designs of love to you. Then in your manhood you did plunge into vice and sin. Cover, O darkness, all our guilt, and let the night conceal it from our eyes forever! Though we added sin to sin, and our pride waxed exceedingly high and hot, yet, He was of one mind— “Determined to save, He watched over my path When Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death.” At last, when the happy hour arrived, He came to our door and knocked and He said, “Open to Me.” And do you remember, O my brothers and sisters, how we said, “Go away, O Jesus! We want You not”? We scorned His grace, defied His love, but He was of one mind, and no hardness of heart could turn Him. He had determined to have us for His spouse, and He would not take “No” for an answer! He said He would have us, and He persevered. He knocked again, and do you remember how we half opened the door? But then, some strong temptation came, and we shut it in His very face, and He said, “Open to Me, my dove, My head is wet with the dew, and My locks with the drops of the night”—yet, we bolted and barred the door, and would not let Him in. But, He was of one mind and none could turn Him. Oh, my soul weeps now, when I think of the many convictions that I stifled, of the many movings of His Spirit that I rejected, and those many times when conscience bade me repent, and urged me to flee to Him but I would not! My souls weeps when I think of those seasons when a mother’s tears united with all the intercession of the Savior, yet, my heart was harder than granite, and I refused to move, and would not yield. But, He was of one mind. He had no fickleness in Him. He said He would have us, and have us He would! He had written our names in His book, and He would not cross them out. It was His solemn purpose that yield we should. And O, that hour when, by His grace, we yielded at last! Then did He prove that in all our wanderings, He had been of one mind! 6 6 And O, since then, how sorrowful the reflection! Since then, how often have you and I turned? We have backslidden, and if we had the Arminian’s god to deal with, we should either have been in hell or out of the covenant at this hour! I know I would be in the covenant and out of the covenant a hundred times a day, if I had a god who put me out every time I sinned, and then restored me when I repented. But no, despite our sin, our unbelief, our backslidings, our forgetfulness of Him, He was of one mind! And brothers and sisters, I know this, that though we shall still wander, though in dark hours you and I may slip and often fall, yet, His loving-kindness changes not! Your strong arm, O God, shall bear us on; Your loving heart will never fail; You will not turn Your love away from us, or make it cease, or pour upon us Your fierce anger—but having begun, You will complete the triumphs of Your grace. Nothing shall make You change Your mind! What joy is this to you, believers? For your mind changes every day; your experience varies like the wind, and if salvation were to be the result of any purpose on your part, certainly it never would be! But since it is God’s work to save, and we have proved that He is of one mind, our faith shall revel in the thought that, He will be of one thought, even to the end—till all on glory’s summit we shall sing of that fixed purpose, and that immutable love, which never turned aside until the deed of divine grace was triumphantly achieved! Now, believer, listen to the second lesson—“Who can make Him change?” While He is Immutable from within, He is immovable from without. “Who can make Him change?” That is a splendid picture presented to us by Moses in the Book of Numbers. The children of Israel were encamped in the plains of Moab. Quietly and calmly they were resting in the valley—the tabernacle of the Lord in their midst and the pillar of cloud spread over them as a shield. But, on the mountain range there were two men—Balak, the son of Zippor, king of the Moabites, and Balaam the prophet of Pethor. They had built seven altars and offered seven bullocks, and Balak said unto Balaam, “Come, curse me Jacob, come, and defy Israel.” Four times did the prophet take up his parable.

Four times did he use his enchantments, offering the sacrifices of God on the altars of Baal. Four times did he vainly attempt a false divination. But, I would have you mark, that in each succeeding vision, the mind of God is brought out in deeper characters. First, Balaam confesses his own impotence, “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom the Lord has not defied?” Then the second oracle brings out more distinctly the divine blessing, “Behold, I have received commandment to bless—and He has blessed and I cannot reverse it.” A third audacious attempt is not with a heavier repulse, for the stifled curse recoils on them—“Blessed is he that blesses you, and cursed is he that curses you.” Once again, in the vision that closes the picture, the eyes of Balaam are opened till he gets a glimpse of the Star that should come out of Jacob, and the Scepter that shall rise out of Israel, with the dawning glory of the latter days. Well might Balaam say, “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel.” And now, transfer that picture in your mind to all your enemies, and especially to that arch-fiend of hell. He comes before God today with the remembrance of your sins, and he desires that he may curse Israel, but, he has found a hundred times that there is no enchantment against Jacob, nor divination against Israel! He took David into the sin of lust, and he found that God would not curse him there, but bless him with a sorrowful chastisement, and with a deep repentance. He took Peter into the sin of denying his Master, and he denied Him with oaths and curses. But, the Lord would not curse him, even there, but turned and looked on Peter, not with a lightning glance that might have splintered him, but with a look of love that made him weep bitterly. He has taken you and me many times into positions of unbelief, and we have doubted God. Satan said— “Surely, surely God will curse him there,” but never once has He done it! He has smitten, but the blow was full of love! He has chastised, but the chastisement was filled with mercy! He has not cursed us, nor will He. You cannot turn God’s mind! Then, fiend of hell, your enchantments cannot prosper; your accusations shall not prevail. “He is of one mind, who can make Him change?” And brothers and sisters, you know when men are turned, they are sometimes turned by advice. Now, who can advise God? Who shall counsel the Most High to cast off the darlings of His bosom or persuade the Savior to reject His spouse? Such counsel offered was blasphemy, and it would be repugnant to His soul. Or else men are turned by entreaties. But, how shall God listen to the entreaties of the evil one? Are not the prayers of the wicked an abomination to the Lord? Let them pray against us—let 7 7 them entreat the Lord to curse us; but He is of one mind, and no revengeful prayer can change the purpose of His love! Sometimes men are changed by the ties of relationships—a mother interposes and man yields—but, in our case, who can interpose? God’s only begotten Son is as much concerned in our salvation as His Father, and instead of interposing to change, He would—if such a thing were needed—still continue to plead that the love and mercy of God might never be withdrawn. Oh, let us rejoice in this— “Midst all our sin, and care and woe, His Spirit will not let us go!” The Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people. “He is of one mind, and who can make Him change?” I know not how it is, but, I feel that I cannot preach from this text as I would like. But oh, the text itself is music to my ears! It seems to sound like the martial trumpet of the battle, and my soul is ready for the fray. It seems, now, that if trials and troubles should come—if I could but hold my hand upon this precious text—I would laugh at them all! “Who can make Him change?”—I would shout—“Who can make Him change?” Come on, earth and hell, come on—for “who can make Him change?” Come on, you boisterous troubles, come on, you innumerable temptations, come on, slanderer and liar, “who can make Him change?” And since He cannot be changed, my soul must and will rejoice “with joy unspeakable and full of glory!” I wish I could throw the text like a bombshell into the midst of the army of doubters, that that army might be routed at once, for when we get a text like this; it must be the text which takes effect, and not our explanation! This surely is a most marvelous deathblow to our doubts and fears. “He is of one mind, and who can make Him change?” And now, with a few words upon the last sentence I shall conclude—God’s purpose must be effected—“ Whatever His soul desires, that He does.” Beloved, what God’s soul desires is your salvation and mine—if we are His chosen. Well, that He does. Part of that salvation consists in our perfect sanctification. We have had a long struggle with inbred sin, and as far as we can judge, we have not made much progress. Still is the Philistine in the land, and still do the Canaanites invade us. We still sin, and our hearts still have in them unbelief and proneness to depart from the living God. Can you think it possible that you will ever be without any tendency to sin? Does it not seem a dream that you should ever be without fault before the throne of God—without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing? But yet, you shall be! His heart desires it, and that He does. He would have His spouse without any defilement. He would have His chosen generation without anything to mar their perfection. Now, inasmuch as He spoke and it was done, He has but to speak and it shall be done with you. You cannot rout your foes, but He can. You cannot overcome your besetting sins, but He can do it! You cannot drive out your corruptions, for they have chariots of iron, but He will drive out the last of them till the whole land shall be without one enemy to disturb its perpetual peace. O what a joy to know that it will be before long! Oh, it will be so soon with some of us—just a few weeks—though we perhaps are planning on years of life! A few weeks, or a few days, and we shall have passed through Jordan’s flood and stand complete in Him, accepted in the beloved! And should it be many years—should we be spared till the snows of a century shall have fallen upon our frosted hair—yet, even then, we must not doubt that His purpose shall at last be fulfilled. We shall be spotless and faultless, and unblameable in His sight before long. Another part of our salvation is that we should at last be without pain, without sorrow—gathered with the Church of the first-born before the Father’s face. Does it not seem, when you sit down to think of yourself as being in heaven, as a pretty dream that will never be true? What? Shall these fingers one day smite the strings of a golden harp? O aching head! Shall you one day wear a crown of glory that fades not away? O toil-worn body! Shall you bathe yourself in seas of heavenly rest? Is not heaven too good for us, brothers and sisters? Can it be that we, poor we, shall ever get inside those pearly gates or tread the golden streets? Oh, shall we ever see His face? Will He ever kiss us with the kisses of His lips? Will the King immortal, invisible, the only wise God, our Savior, take us to His bosom, and call us all His own? Oh, shall we ever drink out of the rivers of pleasure that are at the right hand of the Most High? Shall we be among that happy company who shall be led to the living fountains of waters, and all tears be wiped away from our eyes? Ah, that we shall be! For “He is of one mind, and who can make 8 8 Him change? And what His soul desires, that He does.” “Father, I will that they whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” That is an immortal omnipotent desire! We shall be with Him where He is! His purpose shall be, and we shall partake of His bliss! Now rise, you who love the Savior, and put your trust in Him—rise like men who have God within you, and sit no longer down upon your dunghills. Come, you desponding ones. If salvation were to be your own work, you might despair—but, since it is His, and He changes not, you must not ever doubt— “Now let the feeble all be strong, And make Jehovah’s power their song; His shield is spread o’er every saint. And thus supported, who can faint?” If you perish—even the weakest of you—God’s purpose cannot be effected! If you finally fall, His honor will be stained! If you perish, heaven itself will be dishonored—Christ will have lost one of His members—He will be a king whose regalia has been stolen! No, He will not be complete Himself—for the Church is His fullness—and how can He be full, if a part of His fullness shall be cast away? Putting these things together, let us take courage, and in the name of God let us set up our banners. He that has been with us up to now will preserve us to the end, and we shall soon sing in the fruition of glory, as we now recite in the confidence of faith—that His purpose is completed, and His love Immutable! I say by way of closing, such a subject ought to inspire every man and woman with awe. I speak to some here who are unconverted. It is an awful thought—God’s purpose will be subserved in you. You may hate Him, but as He got honor upon Pharaoh, and all his hosts, so will He upon you. You may think that you will spoil His designs—that shall be your idea, but your very acts, though guided with that intent, shall only tend to subserve His glory. Think of that! To rebel against God is useless, for you cannot prevail. To resist Him is not only impertinence, but folly. He will be as much glorified by you, whichever way you go. You shall either yield Him willing honor or unwilling honor—but, either way, His purpose in you shall most certainly be subserved. O that this thought might make you bow your heads and say, “Great God, glorify Your mercy in me, for I have revolted. Show that You can forgive! I have sinned, deeply sinned. Prove the depths of Your mercy by pardoning me. I know that Jesus died, and that He is set forth as a propitiator. I believe on Him as such. O God, I trust Him; I pray You will glorify Yourself in me, by showing what Your grace can do in casting sin behind Your back, and blotting out iniquity, transgression and sin!” Sinner, He will do it. He will do it! If thus you plead and thus you pray, He will do it! There was never a sinner rejected yet, that came to God with humble prayer and faith. Go to God today. Confess your sin and take hold of Christ as upon the horns of the altar of mercy, and of sacrifice. If you do, you shall find that it was a part of the divine plan to bring you here today, to strike your mind with awe, to lead you humbly to the cross, to lead you afterwards joyfully to your God—and to bring you perfect at last before His throne! God add His blessing for Christ’s sake! Amen.  

Charles Spurgeon