The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ the castle of Giant Despair; but the key of promise picked the lock, and they escaped. They were in the fowler’s net, too, when Flatterer cast a net over them, and left them in the lane; but there came one who, after he had beaten them severely, took the net off, and they went on their way, better men than they were before they were in the net. I know one who is in the net now. Some bird, one of God’s own ones too, has been taken in the snare; and is now groaning and crying out because, alas! alas! he has sinned. I have a person here, a good man, a professor of religion, and a truly worthy one! but alas! he has sinned, and at this hour the tears are in his eyes, and he is saying,

      The tumult of my thoughts

      Does but increase my woe;

      My spirit languishes, my heart

      Is desolate and low.

      Turn, turn thee to my soul;

      Bring your salvation near;

      When will your hand release my feet

      Out of the deadly snare?

      Oh backslider, be cast down, but do not despair; God will restore you yet. Wanderer though you have been, hear what he says! “Return, oh backsliding children; I will have mercy upon you.” But you say you cannot return. Then, here is still a promise — “surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.” You shall yet be brought out from all the evil into which you have fallen, and though you shall never cease to repent of your ways even to your dying day, yet he who has loved you will not cast you away; he will receive you, he will admit you into his dwelling place, and will even now restore you to the number of his people, and give you joy and gladness, that the bones which he has broken may rejoice. “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.”

      15. There have been very remarkable instances of God delivering his people out of the snare of the fowler, as the following illustration will show:

      16. “A young lady who belonged to a church in the city of New York, married a young man who was not a Christian. He was a merchant, engaged in a lucrative business, and the golden stream of wealth flowed in upon him until he had amassed a large fortune. He accordingly retired from business, and went into the country. He purchased a splendid residence; fine trees waved their luxuriant foliage around it; here was a lake filled with fish, and there a garden full of rare shrubbery and flowers. Their house was fashionably and expensively furnished; and they seemed to possess all of earth that mortal could desire. Thus prospered and plied with an interchange of civilities among her gay and fashionable neighbours the piety of the lady declined, and her heart became wedded to the world. And it is not to be wondered at, that her three children, as they grew up, imbibed her spirit and copied her example. ‘A severe disease,’ it is said, ‘demands a severe remedy’; and that God soon applied. One morning news came that her little son had fallen into the fish lake and was drowned. The mother’s heart was pierced with the affliction, and she wept and murmured against the providence of God. Soon afterwards, her only daughter, a blooming girl of sixteen, was taken sick of a fever, and died. It seemed then as if the mother’s heart would have broken. But this new stroke of the rod of a chastening Father seemed only to increase her displeasure against his will. The only remaining child, her oldest son, who had come home from college to attend his sister’s funeral, went out into the fields soon afterwards, for the purpose of hunting. In getting over a fence, he put his gun over first to assist himself in springing to the ground, when it accidentally discharged itself and killed him! What then were that mother’s feelings? In the extravagance of her grief, she fell down, tore her hair, and raved like a maniac against the providence of God. The father, whose grief was already almost insupportable, when he looked upon the shocking spectacle, and heard her frenzied ravings, could endure his misery no longer. The iron entered into his soul and he fell a speedy victim to his accumulated afflictions. From the wife and mother, her husband and all her children were now taken away. Reason returned, and she was led to reflection. She saw her dreadful backslidings, her pride, her rebellion; and she wept with the tears of a deep repentance. Peace was restored to her soul. Then would she lift up her hands to heaven, exclaiming, ‘I thank you, oh Father! — the Lord has given, the Lord has taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.’ Thus did her afflictions yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and her heavenly Father chasten her, ‘not for his pleasure, but for her profit, that she might become partaker of his holiness.’ ”

      17. So God delivered her soul out of the snare of the fowler. She started afresh in the ways of righteousness, serving God with diligence and zeal, and growing up in his fear. By trouble and trial, by some means or another, God will surely deliver his people out of the snare of the fowler, even when they are in it.

      18. III. And now, to conclude, I am to dwell for a moment or two upon that word “SURELY.” The assurance of every truth of Scripture is just the beauty of it. If it were not sure, it would not be precious; and it is precious just because it is sure.

      19. Now, it says, “surely he shall deliver you.” Why? First because he has promised to do it; and God’s promises are bonds that never yet were dishonoured. If he has said he will, he will. Secondly, because Christ Jesus has taken an oath that he will do it. In ages long gone by Christ Jesus became the shepherd of the sheep, and the Surety of them too. “If any of them perish,” he said, “at my hand you shall require it”; and, therefore, because Christ is responsible, because he is the heavenly sponsor for all God’s people, they must be kept: for otherwise Christ’s bond would be forfeited, and his oath would be null and void. They must be kept again because otherwise the union that there is between all of them and Christ would not be a real one. Christ and his Church are one — one body; but if any of the members of my body were cut off, I would be maimed, and if Christ could lose one of his children he would be a maimed Christ. “We are his body, the fulness of him that fills all in all.” If, then, the whole Church were not to be gathered in, Christ would be an incomplete Christ, seeing he would lack his fulness. They must all be saved, for God the Father has determined that they shall be; no the Son has sworn they shall be; and God the Holy Spirit vouches for it they shall be. Not one of God’s people shall be cast away, or else the Bible is not true. The whole stability of the covenant rests on their final perseverance. The whole covenant of grace rests on this —

      He shall present our souls,

      Unblemished and complete,

      Before the glory of his face,

      With joys divinely great.

      And therefore they must be preserved out of the snare of the fowler, because otherwise the covenant would be null and void. If one would perish the oath would be broken; if one would be cast away the covenant would be void; and therefore they must be kept secure.

      His honour is engaged to save

      The meanest of his sheep;

      All that his heavenly Father gave,

      His hands securely keep.

      20. I have no time to enlarge upon that subject, which is filled with glory, and might afford a topic for many discourses. I now close up by saying, Men and brethren, is this promise yours? “Surely he shall deliver you.” Are you the man? “How can I tell?” you say. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you, as a guilty sinner, cast yourself wholly on the blood and righteousness of the immaculate Redeemer? I do not ask you whether you are a Wesleyan, a Churchman, a Baptist, an Independent, or a Presbyterian; my only question is, Are you born again? Have you passed from death to life? Are you “a new creature in Christ Jesus?” Is all your trust put in the Lord Jesus Christ? Has his life become your model, and СКАЧАТЬ