INSPIRATION FOR SEEKERS AND VETERAN CHRISTIANS
by C H Spurgeon fromFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2005 No
3
A brief talk by C H Spurgeon from The Sword and the Trowel
1873
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and
to finish his work (John 4.34).
This text contains much consolation for those who search for
salvation, and provides a supreme example to those who are saved.
Let us begin by noticing that the text contains much encouragement for
seekers. Those burdened by a sense of sin will note that the work of saving
souls is called by Christ - His Father’s will. There is a tendency to imagine that Christ is
full of pity, but the Father is austere, severe, and an avenging judge. The Saviour,
however, says that the work of mercy is ‘the will of him that sent me’.
In other words, He effectively says, ‘All that I am doing when I seek the soul of
a poor, sinful, Samaritan woman by this well, is in agreement with My Father’s mind.’
Christ was bringing to reconciliation with God those whom the benevolent will of the
Father said should be saved.
Seeker, if you find yourself in the garden of the household of God you have not
come here as an intruder, for the gate is open and it is God’s will that you should come. If
you receive Christ into your heart, you will not have stolen the treasure; it was God’s will
that you should receive Christ. If with broken heart you come and rest on the finished
sacrifice of Jesus, you need not fear that you will violate the eternal purpose, or come into
collision with the divine decree, for God’s will has brought you into this condition.
One of the most groundless fears a person can entertain is the dread that the
Father will be unwilling to forgive. If you desire, God has long
ago desired. If you determine in your heart to find God, He has
long ago determined it. You need never be troubled about divine predestination.
Rest assured that God has never spoken in secret, in some dark place of the
earth, and said, ‘Seek My face in vain.’ He has never passed a secret decree in the eternal
council-chamber which shall contravene the open promise of His mercy - whosoever
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. If you come to Christ and cast yourself upon
Him, you need entertain no fear that you are violating the will of God, for salvation is the
will of God which Jesus Christ has come to fulfil.
Another consolation is given here to every seeking soul, namely, that
Jesus Christ is sent into the world on purpose to save. If I know that I am
sick, and that a physician has come for the express purpose of healing, I feel no difficulty
about inviting him into my house. If I know that I am poor, and that a rich benefactor has
come with the express intention of liberally helping the poor, I have no difficulty in
approaching him.
Similarly, wherever there is an empty sinner, a full Christ has come for the
purpose of filling that empty sinner. If you hunger after Christ, rest assured that Christ has
met with you, and sees you as one of those whom He came to call. He would not have
made you hunger, nor made you thirst, nor made you feel your emptiness, if it had not
been His intention to remove that hunger, slake that thirst, and fill that emptiness to the
full.
Never indulge the thought that He came to save better ones than you, and that
you are beyond the pale of His mercy, but instead let your sinfulness, nothingness,
conscious weakness and condemnation inspire you with a surer hope that you are the very
person Jesus Christ came to deliver. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Who is more lost than you? Here, then, is a double comfort: it is both the will of God and
the mission of Christ that sinners should be saved.
Perhaps the greatest encouragement to a despairing sinner in this text is
the delight which Jesus Christ experiences in the work of saving souls. This was
His one object. From eternity past He looked forward to the day when a body should be
prepared for Him so that He might come into the world to redeem the lost. Then, when
the fullness of time was come, He was no unwilling servant to our souls. ‘In the volume
of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God.’
Down from the portals of the skies the Saviour came with glad alacrity, willing
to save. When He was on earth He was never reluctant to seek out the guilty. He could
have healed the leper, if He had wanted, while standing at a distance, but He chose to
touch him when He healed him, to show that He did not shrink from helping humanity.
This was His delight.
He did not surround Himself with a bodyguard to keep off the throng, but was
among them, often surrounded by a multitude of common folk. He put Himself at the
beck and call of everyone. He had not time so much as to eat, and when He did seek a
little rest, they followed Him on foot and pressed Him with their entreaties. He was never
angry, but always full of compassion towards them.
Christ was a willing Saviour, and found His soul’s delight in winning souls.
Even the great crowning work of suffering and death by which souls were redeemed was
no unwilling service. He said He had a baptism to be baptised with, and that He was
straitened until it was accomplished. The cup was bitter as hell, but He longed to drink it.
His death was to be at once the most ignominious and the most painful that
could be devised, and yet He thirsted for it. ‘With desire I have desired to eat this
passover,’ He said.
He did not hide Himself away when He was sought by His murderers, but went
to the garden. Judas knew the place, and when they sought Him He said, ‘Wherefore have
ye come out to seek me as a thief with swords and with staves?’ He was willing to yield
Himself up. No bonds could have bound Him, and yet He offered Himself. They could
not have dragged Him to the cross, nor myriads like them, but He went like ‘a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth’.
All that wondrous passion upon Calvary was a free-will, voluntary sacrifice to
the fullest possible degree. I may even say that in His deepest agony Christ had a joy
unknown. I think we have too much forgotten the wonderful joy which must have filled
the Saviour’s heart even when going to the cross.
Dear friends, if you have a benevolent nature, you cannot suffer for others
without feeling joy that you are taking the suffering from them. We know that it was
because of ‘the joy that was set before him’ that He ‘endured the cross, despising the
shame’.
As the Lord dived into the black waves of grief He could see the precious pearl
which He counted to be of greater price than all, and that sight sustained Him with a
latent joy. This joy may not have appeared to onlookers at the time, but it lay slumbering
within His soul even when He was ‘exceeding sorrowful, even unto death’.
Now that He has gone up on high, He has no greater joy than this - in seeing
souls redeemed by Him. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it would not be saved, but He
rejoices greatly over sinners who repent. This is His happiness, and His crown of
rejoicing - even poor fearful seekers who come and look to Him and find their healing in
His wounds.
I would urge those of you who desire to find peace and faith, to make a point of
thinking very much about Christ. We not only lay hold on the cross by faith, but it is the
cross which works faith in us. If you would think more often of the mercy of God, and the
will of God, and the mission of Christ, and the lovingkindness of Christ, your soul would
probably be led by the Spirit, through that course of thought, to believe in Him. Dwelling
constantly upon your sin and your hardness of heart tends to drive you to despair.
It is well to know that your heart is hard, and your sin great, but a person is not
healed simply by knowing that he is sick, nor will he get comfort by merely studying his
disease. So you are not likely to find faith by raking amongst the baseness of your fallen
nature, or trying to find something good in yourself which is not there. Your wisest
course is to think much of Christ, and look to Him. You will soon find hope in Him if you
look for it in Him. You will soon discover grounds for comfort if you look to God in the
person of His Son.
If you consider the will of God as it is revealed on Calvary, and read it in the
crimson lines written on the Saviour’s pierced body, you will soon perceive that His will
is love. Look away from your own state of death, to the death of Jesus. I urge you to
receive the truth which I have put before you, and which the text so plainly presents. The
salvation of sinners is the will of God, the work of Christ, and the joy of Christ. Is not
this good news?
But I said that the text was also an example to believers, and so it is.
The more we become like Him, the more we attain to what God would have
us be. Note in the text, first of all, Christ’s subservience. He says, ‘My meat
is to do the will of him that sent me.’ He says nothing about His own will. Did He not
say, ‘Not my will, but thine be done’? The person of the world thinks that if he could
have his own way he would be perfectly happy, and his dream of happiness is comprised
in this, that his own wishes will be gratified, his own longings fulfilled, his own desires
granted to him.
This is all a mistake. A person will never be happy in this way. Perfect
happiness is to be found in exactly the opposite direction, namely, in the casting down of
our own will entirely, and asking that the will of God may be fulfilled in us.
‘This is my meat,’ says the sinner, ‘to do my own will.’ Jesus Christ points to
another table, and says, ‘This is My meat, to do the will of Him that sent Me. My greatest
comfort, and the most substantial nourishment of My spirit, are not found in carrying out
My own desires, but in submitting all My desires to the will of the Father.’
Beloved, our sorrows grow from the roots of our self-will. Would we have
deep sorrow if we were really submitted to the will of God? Pain would have a wonderful
sweetness, losses would become things to rejoice in, and we would even take joyfully the
destruction of our goods.
Another matter to notice in this text is something other than subservience. It is
a recognised commission. Let it be our desire also to see clearly our
commission from on high. Christ speaks of ‘the will of him that sent me.’ If I
am a soldier sent on a mission, I do not have to consider what I shall do, for
having received my commands I am bound to obey. Do not many Christians fail to see
their commission?
It has come to be a dreadfully common belief in the Christian church that the
only person who has a ‘call’ is the one who devotes all his time to the ‘ministry’, whereas
all Christian service is ministry, and every Christian has a call to some kind of ministry or
another. It is not every person who can become an instructor or an exhorter, but each one
must minister according to the gift received. We are a nation of priests. As believers we
are sent into this world with a distinct commission, and that is very like the commission
given to our Master. In our measure the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord.
The work of atonement we cannot share, for Christ has trodden the winepress
alone, but the place of service is our dwelling-place. Christ’s dying commission, not to
the apostles only, but to all the saints, is this: ‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send I
you.’
When Christ was sent of God He did not forget that He was sent. He did not
come into this world to do His own business.
So you and I must not act as though we were here just to make money or bring
up our families, and make matters comfortable for ourselves. We are sent into the world
on a divine errand, and we need grace to recognise the errand and to perform it.
Further, notice the practical character of our Lord’s observations on
these two points. He says, ‘My meat is’ - what? To consider? To resolve? To
calculate? To study prophecy as to when the world will end? To meditate upon plans by
which we may be able one of these days to do something great? Not at all. ‘My meat is to
do the will of him that sent me.’
The meat of some people is to find fault with others who do Christ’s will. They
never seem to have their mouths so well filled as when remarking upon the imperfections
of those who are vastly better than themselves.
Did you ever know a man whom God blessed who had not some crotchet or
singularity? Whenever God blesses us there is sure to be something or other to remind
others that the vessel containing the treasure is an earthen vessel. Were critics wise they
would understand that this is a part of the divine appointment, that we should have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
There are others, of a somewhat better disposition, who find their meat in
projecting new methods, and who invent grand schemes. They are always talking of some
great scheme or other for impossible Christian union, or some magnificent but
impracticable Christian effort. Our Lord was practical. You are struck throughout His life
with the practical character of it. He was no visionary, and no fanatic. Though His holy
soul was on fire, all His plans and methods were the wisest that could possibly be
arranged. I hope we shall be the same.
Some Christians are too fond of mysticisms, quibbles, oddities, and strange
questions which minister not unto profit. I heartily wish they would try to win souls for
Christ in the old-fashioned biblical way. Every now and then some particular phase of
truth crops up, and certain Christians go perfectly mad about it, wanting to pry between
leaves that are folded, or to find out secrets which are not revealed, or to reach some
fancied eminence of self-conceited perfection in the flesh. While there are so many
sinners to be lost or to be saved, I believe we had better keep to preaching the Gospel.
As long as this world contains millions of those who do not know even the
elementary truths of Christianity, would it not be the best priority for us to go into the
highways and hedges, and tell men of our dying Saviour, and point them to the cross? Let
us discuss the millennium, and the secret rapture, and all those other intricate questions
by-and-by, when we have got through more pressing needs.
Just now the vessel is going to pieces; who will man the lifeboat? The house is
ablaze, and who will run the fire-escape up to the window? Here are men perishing for
lack of knowledge, and who will tell them that there is life in a look at the crucified One?
Christ’s satisfaction of heart was of a most practical kind; He was subservient to God as a
commissioned servant; and He was busy actually doing the will of God.
For all that we have said, the gist of our text lies here: that our Lord Jesus
Christ found both sustenance and delight in the will of God in the winning of
souls. Read the diaries of Whitefield and of Wesley and you will be struck with the
fact that you do not find them perpetually doubting their calling, mistrusting their
election, or questioning whether they love the Lord or not. Visualise them preaching to
thousands in the open air, and hearing around them cries of ‘What must we do to be
saved?’ and you will see that they had no time for doubts and fears. Their full hearts had
no room for such lumber.
Such evangelists felt that God had sent them into this world to win souls for
Christ, and they could not afford to live desponding, mistrustful lives. They lived unto
God, and the Holy Ghost lived so mightily in them that they were fully assured of His
marvellous power.
Some believers who do nothing except read Plymouthy books, go to Bible
readings and prophetic conferences, and other forms of spiritual dissipation, would be far
better Christians if they would just roll up their sleeves for work, and go and tell the
Gospel to dying people. All feeding and no working makes men spiritual dyspeptics.
Be idle, with nothing to live for, nothing to care for, no sinner to pray for, no
backslider to lead back to the cross, no trembler to encourage, no little child to tell of a
Saviour, no object, in fact, to live for; and who wonders, if you begin to groan and
murmur and look within. But if the Master shall come to you, and put His hand upon you,
and say - ‘I have sent you just as My Father sent Me; now go and do My will,’ you will
find that in keeping His commandments there is great reward.
Let us have practical Christianity, my brethren. Let us never neglect doctrinal
Christianity, nor experimental Christianity, but if we do not have the practice of it in
being to others what Christ was to us, we shall soon find the experience to be flavoured
with bitterness. Christ found joy in seeking the good of the Samaritan woman. Her heart,
hitherto unrenewed, satisfied Him when He had won it to Himself.
But, notice, our Lord says in addition to His finding it His meat to do God’s
will, that He also desired to finish His work. And this is our soul’s
satisfaction, to persevere until our work is finished. We do not know how near we may be
to the completion of our work. The chariot-wheels of eternity sound behind us. Let us use
the moments zealously, for they are very precious. ‘I paint for eternity,’ said the painter.
So let us work for God as those whose fruit will endure when all burns in the last
tremendous fire.
When David Brainerd the great missionary to the Indians was dying, the last
thing he did was to teach a little child its letters, and when someone marvelled to see so
great a man at such a work, he said he thanked God that when he could no longer preach
he had enough strength left to teach that poor little child. So would he finish his life’s
work, and put in the last little stroke to complete the picture. It should be our meat and
our drink to push on, never finding our meat in what we have done, but in what we are
doing and still have to do; always finding our refreshment in the work of the present hour
as God enables us to perform it.
Let us never say, ‘I have had my day; let the young people take their turn.’
Imagine the stars in their beauty saying, ‘We have for so long a time shot our golden
arrows through the darkness, we will now retire for ever.’ What if the air should refuse to
give us breath, or the water should no longer ripple in its channels, or if all nature should
stand still because of what it once did? What death and ruin there would be. No,
Christian, there must be no loitering for you. Every day may this be your meat - to do the
will of Him that sent you, and to finish His work.
Finally, a word of reflection on the glory which Jesus Christ should have from
us. How could He ever have loved us? It is strange that the Son of God should have set
His affections upon such unworthy beings. It is the wonder of all wonders that He should
have come to save us; when we were so lost and ruined that we did not even care about
His love, rejected it when we heard of it, and despised it even as it came with power to
our hearts.
Yet He has no greater delight than in saving us, and in bringing us to glory. Do
not our hearts say within us, ‘O! what shall I do, my Saviour, to praise? How shall I show
forth my gratitude to Him Who found such delight in serving me?’ From this day forth
may it be our meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent us, and to finish His work. I
leave the text with you, my hearers in Christ, and may God give you grace to translate its
meaning into practical action. I leave the text also with those who are unconverted, and
may it be as cords of love to draw you to Christ, and the praise shall be His for ever and
ever.
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