The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ love lies at the bottom, all these things are vain and useless. The question, then, “Do you love me?” is a very vital question; far more so than one that merely concerns the outward conduct. It is a question that goes into the very heart, and in such a way that it brings the whole heart to one question; for if love is wrong, everything else is wrong. “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”

      6. Ah! dear beloved, we have very much cause for asking ourselves this question. If our Saviour were no more than a man like ourselves, he might often doubt whether we love him at all. Let me just remind you of various things which give us very great cause to ask this question: “Do you love me?” I will deal only with the last week. Come, my Christian brother, look at your own conduct. Do your sins not make you doubt whether you do love your Master? Come, look over the sins of this week: when you were speaking with an angry word and with a sullen look, might not your Lord have touched you, and said, “Do you love me?” When you were doing such-and-such a thing, which you very well know in your conscience was not according to his precept, might he not have said, “Do you love me?” Can you not remember the murmuring word because something had gone wrong with you in business this week, and you were speaking ill of the God of providence for it? Oh, might not the loving Saviour, with pity in his languid eye, have said to you, “Why do you speak like this? Do you love me?” I need not stop to mention the various sins of which you have been guilty. You have sinned, I am sure, enough to give good ground for self-suspicion, if you did not still depend on this: that his love to you, not your love to him, is the seal of your discipleship. Oh, do you not think within yourselves, “If I had loved him more, would I have sinned so much? And oh, can I love him when I have broken so many of his commandments? Have I reflected his glorious image to the world as I should have done? Have I not wasted many hours within this week that I might have spent in winning souls for him? Have I not thrown away many precious moments in light and frivolous conversation which I might have spent in earnest prayer? Oh! how many words have I uttered, which if they have not been filthy, (as I trust they have not) yet have not been such as have ministered grace to the hearers? Oh, how many follies have I indulged in? How many sins have I winked at? How many crimes have I covered over? How have I made my Saviour’s heart to bleed? How have I done dishonour to his cause? How have I in some degree disgraced my heart’s profession of love for him?” Oh, ask these questions of yourself, beloved, and say, “Is this your kindness to your Friend?”

      7. But I hope this week has been one in which you have sinned little publicly with respect to the world, or even in your own estimation, with respect to public acts of crime. But now let me put another question to you, Does not your worldliness make you doubt? How have you been occupied with the world, from Monday morning to the last hour of Saturday night? You have scarcely had time to think of him. What corners have you pushed your Jesus into, to make room for your bales of goods? How have you stowed him away into one short five minutes, to make room for your ledger or your business journal? How little time have you given to him? You have been occupied with the shop, with the exchange, and the farmyard; and you have had little time to commune with him! Come, just think! remember any one day this week; can you say that your soul always flew upward with passionate desires to him? Did you pant like a hart for your Saviour during the week? No, perhaps there was a whole day went by, and you scarcely thought of him until the evening; and then you could only upbraid yourself, “How have I forgotten Christ today? I have not beheld him; I have not walked with him; I have not done as Enoch did! I knew he would come into the shop with me; I knew he is such a blessed Christ that he would stand behind the counter with me; I knew he was such a joyous Lord Jesus that he would walk through the market with me! but I left him at home, and forgot him all the day long.” Surely, surely, beloved, when you remember your worldliness, you must say of yourself; “Oh Lord, you might well ask, ‘Do you love me?’ ”

      8. Consider again, I beseech you, how cold you have been this week at the mercy seat. You have been there, for you cannot live without it; you have lifted up your heart in prayer, for you are a Christian, and prayer is as necessary to you as your breath. But oh! with what a poor asthmatic breath have you lived this week! How little have you breathed? Do you not remember how hurried your prayer was on Monday morning, how driven you were on Tuesday night? Can you not remember how languid your heart was, when on another occasion you were on your knees? You have had little wrestling, maybe, this week; little agonizing; you have had little of the prayer which prevails; you have scarcely laid hold of the horns of the altar; you have stood in the distance, and seen the smoke at the altar, but you have not laid hold of the horns of it. Come, ask yourself, do your prayers not make you doubt? I say, honestly before you all, my own prayers often make me doubt; and I know nothing that gives me more grave cause of unrest. When I labour to pray — oh! that rascally devil! — fifty thousand thoughts he tries to inject, to take me away from prayer; and when I will and must pray, oh, what an absence there is of that burning fervent desire; and when I would desire to draw very close to God, when I would weep my very eyes out in penitence, and would believe and take the blessing, oh, what little faith and what little penitence there is! Truly, I have thought that prayer has made me more unbelieving than anything else! I could believe over the tops of my sins, but sometimes I can scarcely believe over the tops of my prayers — for oh! how cold is prayer when it is cold! Of all things that are bad when cold, I think prayer is the worst, for it becomes like a very mockery, and instead of warming the heart, it makes it colder than it was before, and seems even to dampen its life and spirit — and fills it full of doubts whether it is really an heir of heaven and accepted of Christ. Oh! look at your cold prayers, Christian, and say is not your Saviour right to ask this question very solemnly, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”

      9. But stop, again; just one more word for you to reflect upon. Perhaps you have had much prayer, and this has been a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. But yet, maybe, you know, you have not gone as far this week as you might have done, in another exercise of godliness that is even better than prayer, — I mean communion and fellowship. Oh! beloved, you have this week had very little sitting under the apple tree, and finding its shadow great delight to you. You have not gone much this week to the banqueting house, and had its banner of love over you. Come, think to yourself, how little have you seen your Lord this week! Perhaps he has been absent the greater part of the time; and have you not groaned? have you not wept? have you not sighed after him? Surely, then, you cannot have loved him as you should, else you could not have borne his absence; you could not have endured it calmly, if you had the affection for him as a sanctified spirit should have for its Lord. You did have one sweet visit from him in the week, and why did you let him go? Why did you not constrain him to abide with you? Why did you not lay hold of the skirts of his garment, and say, “Why should you be like a wayfaring man, and as one that turns aside, and tarries for a night? Oh! my Lord, you shall dwell with me; I will keep you; I will detain you in my company; I cannot let you go; I love you, and I will constrain you to stay with me this night and the next day; as long as I can keep you, will I keep you.” But no; you were foolish; you did let him go. Oh! soul, why did you not lay hold of his arm, and say, “I will not let you go.” But you did lay hold on him so feebly, you did allow him to depart so quickly, he might have turned around, and said to you, as he said to Simon, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”

      10. Now, I have asked you all these questions, because I have been asking them of myself. I feel that I must answer to nearly every one of them, “Lord, there is great cause for me to ask myself that question”; and I think that most of you, if you are honest with yourselves, will say the same. I do not approve of the man that says, “I know I love Christ, and I never have a doubt about it”; because we often have reason to doubt ourselves; a believer’s strong faith is not a strong faith in his own love to Christ — it is a strong faith in Christ’s love to him. There is no faith which always believes that it loves Christ. Strong faith has its conflicts; and a true believer will often wrestle in the very teeth of his own feelings. Lord, if I never did love you, nevertheless, if I am not a saint, I am a sinner. Lord, I still believe; help my unbelief. The disciple can believe, when he feels no love; for he can believe that Christ loves the soul; and when he has no evidence he can come to Christ without evidence, and lay hold of him, just as he is, СКАЧАТЬ