1 Peter 2:4
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,”
In these three words you have, first of all, a blessed
person mentioned, under the pronoun "whom"-"To whom
coming." In the way of salvation we come alone to Jesus
Christ. All comings to baptism, comings to
confirmation, comings to sacrament are all null and
void unless we come to Jesus Christ. That which saves
the soul is not coming to a human priest, nor even
attending the assemblies of God's saints; it is coming
to Jesus Christ, the great exalted Saviour, once slain,
but now enthroned in glory. You must get to him, or
else you have virtually nothing upon which your soul
can rely. "To whom coming." Peter speaks of all the
saints as coming to Jesus, coming to him as unto a
living stone, and being built upon him, and no other
foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, and
if any man say that coming anywhere but to Christ can
bring salvation, he hath denied the faith and utterly
departed from it. The coming mentioned in the text is a
word which is sometimes explained in Scripture by
hearing, at other times by trusting or believing, and
quite as frequently by looking. "To whom coming."
Coming to Christ does not mean coming with any natural
motion of the body, for he is in heaven, and we cannot
climb up to the place where he is; but it is a mental
coming, a spiritual coming; it is, in one word,a
trusting in and upon him. He who believes Jesus Christ
to be God, and to be the appointed atonement for sin,
and relies upon him as such, has come to him, and it is
this coming which saves the soul. Whoever the wide
world over has relied upon Jesus Christ, and is still
relying upon him for the pardon of his iniquities, and
for his complete salvation, is saved.
Notice one thing more in these three words, that the
participle is in the present. "To whom coming," not "To
whom having come," though I trust many of us have come,
but the way of salvation is not to come to Christ and
then forget it, but to continue coming, to be always
coming. It is the very spirit of the believer to be
always relying upon Christ, as much after a life of
holiness as when he first commenced that life; as much
when he has been blessed with much spiritual nearness
of access to God, and a holy, heavenly frame of mind;
as much then, I say, as when, a poor trembling
penitent, he said, "God, be merciful to me a sinner."
To Christ we are to be, always coming; upon him always
relying, to his precious blood always looking.
So I shall take the text, then, this evening
thus:-These three words describe our first salvation,
describe the life of the Christian, and then describe
his departure, for what even is that but to be still
coming to Christ, to be in his embrace for ever? First,
then, these three words describe, and very accurately
too:-
I. THE FIRST SALVATION OF THE BELIEVER.
It is coming to Christ. I shall not try to speak the
experience of many present; I know if it were necessary
you could rise and give your "Yea, yes" to it. In
describing the work of grace at the first, I may say
that it was indeed a very simple thing for us to come
to Christ, but simple as it was, some of us were very
long in finding it out. The simplest thing in all the
world is just to look to Jesus and live, to drink of
the life-giving stream, and find our thirst for ever
assuaged. But though it is so plain that he who runs
may read, and a man needs scarce any wit to comprehend
the gospel, yet we went hither and thither, and
searched for years before we discovered the simplicity
which is in Christ Jesus. Most of us were like
Penelope, who spun by day, and then unwound her work at
night. It was even so we did. We thought we were
getting up a little. We had some evidence. We said,
"Yes, we are in a better state; are shall yet be
saved." But ere long the night of sorrow came in. We
had a sight of our own sinfulness, and what we had
spun, I say, by day, we unwound again quite as quickly
by night. Well, there are some of you much in the same
way now. You are like a foolish builder who should
build a wall, and then should begin to knock down all
the stones at once. You build, and then pull down. Or,
like the gardener who, having put into the ground his
seeds and planted his flowers, is not satisfied with
them, and thinks he will have something else, and so
tries again. Ah! the methods and the shifts we will be
at to try and save ourselves, while, after all, Christ
has done it all. We will do anything rather than be
saved by Christ's charity. We do not like to bow our
necks to take the mercy of God, as poor undeserving
sinners. Some will attend their church or their chapel
with wonderful regularity, and think that that will
ease their conscience, and when they get no ease of
conscience from that, then they will! try sacraments,
and when no salvation comes from them, then there will
be good works, Popish ceremonies, and I know not what
besides. All sorts of doings, good, bad, and
indifferent, men will take to, if they may but have a
finger in their own salvation, while all the while the
blessed Saviour stands by, ready to save them
altogether if they will but be quiet and take the
salvation he has wrought. All attempts to save
ourselves by our own works are but a base bargaining
with God for eternal life, but he will never give
eternal life at a price, nor sell it, for all that man
could bring, though in each hand he should hold a star;
he will give it freely to those who want it. He will
dispense it without money and without price to all who
come and ask for it, and, hungering and thirsting, are
ready to receive it as his free gift, but:-
"Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,
And the fool with it, who insults his Lord,"
by bringing in anything that he can do as a Around of
dependence, and putting that in the place of the blood
and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I said, dear friends, that it was very simple, and
indeed it is so, a very simple thing to trust Jesus and
be saved, but it cost some of us many a day to find it
out. Shall I just mention some of the ways in which
persons are, long before they find it out. Some ask,
"What is the best way to act faith? What is the best
way to get this precious believing that I hear so much
spoken of?" Now the question reminds me of a madman
who, standing at a table which is well spread, says to
a person standing there, "Tell me what is the best way
to eat. What is the philosophy of eating?" "Why," the
man replies, "I cannot be long about that; I need not
write a long treatise on it: the best way I know of is
to eat." And when people say, "What is the best way to
get faith?" I say, "Believe." "But what is the best way
to believe?" Why, believe. I can tell you nothing else.
Some may say to you, "Pray for faith." Well, but how
can you pray without faith? Or if they tell you to
read, or do, or feel, in order to get faith, that is a
roundabout way. I find not such exhortations as these
put down as the gospel, but our Master, when he went to
heaven, bade us go into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature; and what was that gospel to
me? His own words are, "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved," and we cannot say anything
clearer than that. "Believe"-that is, trust-"and be
baptized," and these two things are put before you as
Christ's ordained way of salvation. Now you want to
philosophise, do you? Well, but why should a hungry man
philosophies about the bread that it before him? Eat,
sir, and philosophise afterwards. Believe in Jesus
Christ, and when you get the joy and peace which faith
in him will be sure to bring, then philosophize as you
will.
But some are asking the question, "How shall I make
myself fit to be saved?" That is similar to, a man who,
being very black and filthy, coming home from a coal
mine or from a forge, says, seeing the bath before him:
"How shall I make myself fit to be"? You tell him at
once that there cannot be any fitness for washing,
except filthiness, which is the reverse of a fitness.
So there can be no fitness for believing in Christ,
except sinfulness, which is, indeed, the reverse of
fitness. If you are hungry, you are fit to eat; if you
are thirsty, you are fit to drink; if you are naked,
you are fitted to receive the garments which charity is
giving to those who need them; if you are a sinner, you
are fitted for Christ, and Christ for you; if you are
guilty, you are fitted to be pardoned; if you are lost,
you are fitted to be saved. This, is all the fitness
Christ requireth, and cast every other thought of
fitness far hence; yea, cast it to the winds. If thou
be needy, Christ is ready to enrich thee. If thou wilt
come and confess thine offences before God, the
gracious Saviour is willing to pardon thee just as thou
art. There is no other fitness wanted.
But then, if you have answered that, some will begin to
say, "Yes, but the way of salvation is coming to Christ
and I am afraid I do not come in the right way." Dear,
dear, how unwise we are in the matter of salvation! We
are much more foolish than little children are in
common, everyday life. A mother says to her little
child, "Come here, my dear, and I will give you this
apple." Now I will tell you what the first thought of
the child is about; it is about the apple; and the
second thought off the child is about its mother; and
the very last thought he has is about the way of
coming. His mother told him to come, and he does not
say, "Well, but I do not know whether I shall come
right." He totters along as best he can, and that does
not seem to occupy his thoughts at all. But when you
say to a sinner, "Come to Christ, and you shall have
eternal life," he thinks about nothing but his coming.
He will not think about eternal life, nor yet about
Jesus Christ, to whom he is bidden to come, but only
about coming, when he need not think of that at all,
but just do it-do what Jesus bids him-simply trust
him." "What kind of coming is that," says John Bunyan,
"which saves a soul?" and he answers, "Any coming in
all the world if it does but come to Jesus." Some come
running; at the very first sermon they hear they
believe in him. Some come slowly; they are many years
before they can trust him. Some come creeping; scarcely
able to come, they have to be helped by others, but as
long as they do but come, he has said, "Him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out." You may have came in
the most awkward way in all the world, as that man did
who was let down by ropes through the ceiling into the
place where Jesus was, but Christ rejects no coming
sinner, and you need not be looking to your coming, but
looking to Christ. Look to him as God-he can save you;
as the bleeding, dying Son of Man-he is willing to save
you, and flat before his cross, with all your guilt
upon you, cast yourself, and believe that he will save
you. Trust him to do it, and he must save you, for that
is his own word, and from it he cannot depart. Oh!
cease, then, that care about the calling, and look to
the Saviour.
We have met with others who have said, "I Well, I
understand that, that if I trust in Christ, I shall be
saved, but-but-but-I do not understand that passage in
the Revelation: I cannot make out that great difficulty
in Ezekiel; I am a great deal troubled about
predestination and free will, and I cannot believe that
I shall be saved until I comprehend all this." Now, my
dear friend, you are altogether on the wrong tack. When
I was going from Cook's Haven to Heligoland to the
North of Germany, I noticed when we were out at sea,
far away from the sight of land, innumerable swarms of
butterflies. I wondered whatever they could do there,
and when I was at Heligoland I noticed that almost
every wave that came up washed ashore large quantities
of poor dead, drowned butterflies. Now do you know
those butterflies were just like you? You want to go
out on to the great sea of predestination, free will,
and I do not know what. Now there is nothing for you
there, ant you have no more business there than the
butterfly has out at sea. It will drown you. How much
better for you just to come and fly to this Rose of
Sharon-that is the thing for you. This Lily of the
Valley-come and light here. There is something here for
you, but out in that dread-sounding deep, without a
bottom or a shore, you will be lost, seeking after the
knowledge of difficulties, which God has hidden from
man, and trying to pry into the thick darkness where
God conceals truth which it were better not to reveal.
Come you to Jesus. If you must have the knots untied,
try to untie them after you get saved, but now your
first business is with Jesus; your first business is
coming unto him; for if you do not, your ruin is
certain, and your destruction will be irretrievable.
But I must not enlarge. Coming to Christ is very
simple, yet how long it takes men to find it out!
Again, we, bear our witness to-night, that nothing but
coming to Christ ever did give us any peace. In my own
case I was distracted, tossed with tempest, and not
comforted for some years, and I never could believe my
sin forgiven or have any peace by day or night until I
simply trusted Jesus, and from that time my peace has
been like a river. I have rejoiced in the certainty of
pardon, and sung with triumph in the Lord my God, and
many of you are constantly doing the same, but until
you looked to Christ, you had not any peace. You
searched, and searched, and searched, but your search
was fruitless until you looked into the five wounds of
the expiring Saviour, and there you found life from the
dead.
And once more, when we did come to Christ, we came very
tremblingly, but he did not cast us out. We thought he
never died for us, that he could not wash our sins
away. We conceived that we were not of his elect; we
dreamed that our prayers could only echo upon a brazen
sky, and never bring us an answer. But still we came to
Christ, because we dared not stop away. We were like a
timid dove that is hunted by a hawk, and is afraid. We
feared we should be destroyed, but he did not say to
us, "You came to me tremblingly, and I will reject
you." Nay, but into the bosom of his love he received
us, and blotted out our sins. When we came to Jesus, we
did not come bringing anything, but we came to him for
everything. We came strictly empty-handed, and we got
all we wanted in Christ. There is a piece of iron, and
if it were to say, "Where am I to get the power from to
cling to the loadstone?" the loadstone would say, "Let
me get near you, and I will supply you with that." So
we sometimes think, "How can I believe? How can I hope?
How can I follow Christ?" Ay, but let Christ get near
us, and he finds us with all that. We do not come to
Christ to bring our repentance, but to get repentance.
We do not come to him with a broken heart, but for a
broken heart. We do not so much even come to him with
faith, as come to him for faith.
"True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings us nigh;
Without money,
Come to Jesus Christ, and buy."
This is the first way of salvation-simply trusting and
looking up to Christ for everything. But, then, we did
trust. There is a difference between knowing about
trust and trusting. By God's Holy Spirit, we were not
left merely to talk about faith, nor to think about it,
but we did believe. If the Government were to announce
that there would be ten thousand acres of land in New
Zealand given to a settler, I can imagine two men
believing it. One believes it and forgets it; the other
believes it and takes his passage to go out and get the
land. Now the first kind of faith saves nobody; but the
second faith, the practical faith, is that which, for
the sake of seeking Christ, gives up the sins of this
life, the pleasures of it-I mean the wicked pleasures
of it-gives up all confidence in everything else, and
casts itself into the arms of the Saviour. There is the
sea of divine love; he shall be saved who plunges
boldly into it, and casts himself upon its waves,
hoping to be upborne. Oh! my hearer, hast thou done
this? If so, thou art certainly a saved one. If thou
hast not, oh! may grace enable thee to do it ere yet
that setting sun has hidden himself beneath the
horizon. Hast thou known this before, that a simple
trust in Christ will save thee? This is the one message
of this inspired Volume. This is the gospel according
to Paul, the one gospel which we preach continually.
Try it, and if it save thee not, we will be bondsmen
for God for thee. But it must save thee, for God is
true, and cannot fail, and he has declared, "He that
believeth on him is not condemned, but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed on the Son of God."
Thus I have tried to explain as clearly as I can that
coming to Jesus is the first business of salvation.
Now, secondly, and with brevity. This is:-
II. A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
The Christian is always coming to Christ. He does not
look upon faith as a matter of twenty years ago, and
done with, but he comes today and he will come to-
morrow. He will come to Jesus Christ afresh to-night
before he goes to bed. We come to Jesus daily, for
Christ is like the well outside the cottager's house.
The man lets down the bucket and gets the cooling
draught, but he goes again to-morrow, and he will have
to go again at night if he is to leave a fresh supply.
He must constantly go to the same place. Fishes do not
live in the water they were in yesterday; they must be
in it to-day. Men do not breathe the air which they
breathed a week ago; they must have fresh air into the
lungs moment by moment. Nobody thinks that he can be
fed upon the fact that he did have a good meal six
weeks ago; he has to eat continually. So "the just
shall live by faith." We come to Jesus just as we came
at first, and we say to him:-
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked come to thee for dress,
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die."
This is the daily and hourly life of the Christian.
But while we thus come daily, we come more boldly than
we used to do. At first we came like cringing slaves;
now we came as emancipated men. At first we came as
strangers. Now we come as brethren. We still come to
the cross, but it is not so much to find pardon for
past sins, for these are forgiven, as to find fresh
comfort from looking up to him who wrought out perfect
righteousness for us.
We come, also, to Jesus Christ, more closely than we
used to do. I hope, brethren and sisters, you can say
that you are not at such a distance from Christ now as
you once were. We ought to be always getting nearer to
him. The old preachers used to illustrate nearness to
Christ by the planets. They said there were Jupiter and
Saturn far away, with very little light and very little
heat from the sun, and then they have their satellites,
their rings, their moons, and their belts to make for
that. Just so they said, with some Christians. They get
worldly comforts-their moons, and their belts-but they
have not got much of their Master; they have got enough
to save them, but oh! such little light. But, said
they, when you get to Mercury, there is a planet
without moons. Why, the sun is its moon, and,
therefore, what does it want with moons when it has the
full blaze of the sun's light and heat continually
pouring upon it? And what a nimble planet it is; how it
spins along in its orbit, because it is near the sun!
Oh! to be like that-not to be far away from Jesus
Christ, even with all the comforts of this life, but to
be near him, filled with life and sacred activity
through the abundance of fellowship and communion with
him. It is still coming, but it is coming after a
nearer sort.
And I may say, too, that it is coming of a dearer sort,
for there is more love in our coming now than there
used to be. We did come at first, not so much loving
Christ, as venturing to trust him, thinking him,
perhaps, to be a hard Master; but now we know him to be
the best of friends, the dearest of husbands. We come
to his bosom, and we lean our heads upon it. We come in
our private devotion; we tell him all our troubles; we
unburden our hearts, and get his love shed abroad in
our hearts in return, and we go away with a joy that
makes our heart to leap within us and to bound like a
young roe over the mountain-tops. Oh! happy is that man
who gets right into the wounds of Jesus, and, with
Thomas, cries, "My Lord and my God!" This is no,
fanaticism, but a thing of sober, sound experience with
some of us. We can rejoice in him, having no confidence
in the flesh. It is still coming but it is coming after
a dearer fashion.
Yet, mark you, it is coming still to the same person,
coming still as poor humble ones to Christ. I have
often told you, my dear brethren and sisters, that when
you get a little above the ground, if it is only an
inch, you get too high. When you begin to think that
surely you are a saint, and that you have some good
thing to trust to, that rotten stuff must all be pulled
to pieces. Believe me, God will not let his people wear
a rag of their own spinning; they must be clothed with
Christ's righteousness from head to foot. The old
heathen said he wrapped himself up in his integrity,
but I should think he did not know what holes there
were in it, or else he would have looked for something
better. But we wrap ourselves in the righteousness of
Christ, and there is not a cherub before the throne
that wears a vestment so right royal as the poor sinner
does when he wears the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Oh! child of God, always live upon your Lord. Hang upon
him, as the pitcher hangs upon the nail. Lean on your
Beloved; his arm will never weary of you. Stay
yourselves upon him; wash in the precious fountain
always; wear his righteousness continually; and be glad
in the Lord, and your gladness need never fail while
you simply and wholly lean upon him. And now, not to
detain you longer, I come to the last point, upon which
we will only say a word or two. The text is:-
III. A VERY CORRECT DESCRIPTION OF OUR DEPARTURE.
"To whom coming." We shall soon, very soon, quit this
mortal frame. I hope you have learned to think of that
without any kind of shudder. Can you not sing:-
"Ah! I shall soon be dying,
Time swiftly glides away;
But on my Lord relying
I hail the happy day."
What is there that we should wait here for? Those who
have the most of this world's cods have found it paltry
stuff. It perishes in the using. There is a satiety
about it; it cannot satisfy the great heart of an
immortal man. It is well for us that there is to be an
end of this life, and especially for us to whom that
end is glowing with immortality. Well, the hour of
death will be to us a coming to Christ, a coming to sit
upon his throne. Did you ever think of that? "To him
that overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne."
Lord, Lord, we would be well content to, sit at thy
feet. 'Twere all the heaven we would ask if we might
but creep behind the door, or stand and be manual
servants, or sit, like Mordecai, in the king's court.'
No; but it must not be. We must sit on his throne, and
reign with him for ever and ever. This is what death
will bring you-a glorious participation in the
royalties of your ascended Lord.
What is the next thing? "Father, I will that they also
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory." So that we, are to be going
to Christ ere long to behold his glory, and what a
sight that will be! Have you ever thought of that too?
What must it be to behold his glory? Some of my
brethren think that when they get to heaven they shall
like to behold some of the works of God in nature and
so on. I must confess myself more satisfied with the
idea that I shall behold his glory, the glory of the
Crucified, for it seems to me that no kind of heaven
but that comes up to the description of the Apostle
when he saith, "Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive the things which God hath prepared for them
that love him." But to see the stars, has entered into
the heart of man, and to behold the works of God in
nature, has been conceived of; but the joys we speak of
are so spiritual that the Apostle says, "He has
revealed them unto us by his Spirit," and this is what
he has revealed, "That they may behold my glory." St.
Augustine used to say there were two sights he would
like to have seen-Rome in her splendour, and Paul
preaching-the last the better sight of the two. But
there is a third sight for which one might give up all,
give up seeing Naples, or seeing anything, if we might
but see the King his beauty. Why, even the distant
glimpse which we catch of him through a glass or a
telescope darkly ravishes the soul. Dr. Hawker was once
waited upon by a friend, who asked him to go and see a
naval review. He said, "No, thank you; I do not want to
go." "You are a loyal man, doctor, and you would like
to see the defences of your country." "Thank you, I do
not wish to go." "But I have got a ticket for you, and
you must go." "No," he said, "thank you," and after he
had been pressed hard he said, "You have pressed me
till I am ashamed, and now I must tell you-mine eyes
have seen the King in his beauty, and the land which is
very far off, and I have not any taste now for all the
pomps that this world could possibly show." And if such
a distant sight of Jesus can do this, what must it be
to behold his glory with what the old Scotch divines
used to call "a face-to-face view"; when the veil is
taken down, when the clouds are blown away, and you see
him face to face? Oh! long-expected day begin, when we
shall be to him coming to dwell with him.
Once more only. Recollect we shall come to Christ not
only to behold his glory, but to share in it. We shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Whatever
Christ shall be, his people shall be, in happiness,
riches, and honour, and together they shall take their
full share. The Church, his bride, shall sit on the
same throne with him, and of all the splendours of that
eternal triumph she will have her half, for Christ is
no niggard to his imperial spouse, but she whom he
chose before the world began, and bought with blood,
and wrapped in his righteousness, and espoused to
himself for ever, shall be a full partaker of all the
gifts that he poses world without end. And this shall
be, and this shall be, and this shall be for ever; for
ever you shall be with Christ, for ever coming to him.
When the miser's wealth has melted; when the honours of
the conqueror have been blown away or consumed like
chaff in the furnace; when sun and moon grow dim with
age, and the hoary pillars of this earth begin to rock
and reel with stern decay; when the angel shall have
put one foot on the sea and the other on the land, and
shall have sworn by him that liveth that time shall be
no more; when the ocean shall be licked up with tongues
of fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,
and the earth and all the works that are therein shall
be burnt up-then, then shall you be for ever with the
Lord, eternally resting, eternally feasting, eternally
magnifying him; being filled with all his fulness to
the utmost capacity of your enlarged being, world
without end.
So God grant it to us, that we may come to Christ now,
that we may continue to come to Christ, that we may
come to Christ then, lest rejecting him to-night we
should be rejecting him for ever; lest refusing to
trust him, we should be driven from his presence to
abide in misery for ever! May we come now, for Christ's
sake.
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