Martes, Abril 14, 2020

Gratitude for Deliverance from the Grave (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1892)

"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord 
hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death."--
Psalm 118:17, 18.

How very differently we view things at different times and in differing 
states of mind! Faith takes a bright and cheerful view of matters, and 
speaks very confidently, "I shall not die, but live." When we are slack as 
to our trust in God, and give way to misgivings and doubts and fears, we 
sing in the minor key, and say, "I shall die. I shall never live through 
this trouble. I shall one day fall by the hand of the enemy; and that day is 
hastening on. Hope is failing me. Bad times are at the door. I shall not 
live through this crisis." Thus our tongues show the condition of our 
inner man. We talk according to our frames and feelings, and would 
make others think that things are as we see them with our jaundiced 
eyes. Is it not a pity that we give a tongue to our unbelief? Would it not 
be better to be dumb when we are doubtful? Muzzle that dog of unbelief! 
Dog did I call him? He is a wolf; or should I call him hound of hell? His 
voice is that of Apollyon: it is full of blasphemy against God. 
Unbelieving utterances will do no good to yourself, and will do harm to 
those who listen to your babblings. It would be wise to say, "If I should 
speak thus, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When 
I thought to know this, it was too painful for me." Let us be dumb with 
silence when we cannot speak to the Glory of God. But, oh, it is a blessed 
thing, when faith is in our spirit reigning and powerful, to let it have 
ample opportunity to proclaim the honours of his name! To give his 
heart a tongue, is wise in man when his heart itself is wise. The more 
talk we get from the mouth of faith, the better: her lips drop sweet-
smelling myrrh. A silent faith, if there be such a thing, robs others of 
benedictions; and at the same time it does worse, for it robs God of his 
glory. When we have a joyous faith in full operation, let us 
communicative, and let us openly and boldly say, "I shall not die, but 
live, and declare the works of the Lord." I would follow my own advice, 
and crave a patient hearing of you.

You know, perhaps, that this text was inscribed by Martin Luther upon 
his study wall, where he could always see it when at home. Many 
Reformers had been done to death--Huss, and others who preceded him, 
had been burnt at the stake; Luther was cheered by the firm conviction 
that he was perfectly safe until his work was done. In this full assurance 
he went bravely to meet his enemies at the Diet of Worms, and indeed, 
went courageously whenever duty called him. He felt that god had raised 
him up to declare the glorious doctrine of justification by faith, and all 
the other truths of what he believed to be the gospel of God; and 
therefore no faggots could burn him, and no sword could kill him till 
that work was done. Thus he bravely wrote out his belief, and set it 
where many eyes would see it, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the 
works of the Lord." It was no idle boast; but a calm and true conclusion 
from his faith in God and fellowship with him. May you and I, when we 
are tried, be able, through faith in God, to meet trouble with the like 
brave thoughts and speeches! We cannot show our courage unless we 
have difficulties and troubles. A man cannot become a veteran soldier if 
he never goes to battle. No man can get his sea legs if he lives always on 
land. Rejoice, therefore, in your tribulations, because they give you 
opportunities of exhibiting a believing confidence, and thereby glorifying 
the name of the Most High. But take heed that you have faith, true faith 
in God; and do not become a puppet of impressions, much less a slave of 
the judgments of others. To have David's faith, you must be as David. No 
man may take up a confidence of his own making: it must be a real work 
of the Spirit, and growth of grace within, grasping with living tendrils 
the promise of the living God.

I will read the passage from the Psalms over again, and we will consider 
it by God's help. "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the 
Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over to 
death."

First, here is the believer's view of his afflictions. "The Lord hath 
chastened me sore." Secondly, here is the believer's comfort under those 
afflictions. "He hath given me over to death. I shall not die, but live." 
And, thirdly, here is the believer's conduct after his afflictions and after 
his deliverance from them-- "I shall not die, but live, and declare the 
works of the Lord."

I. At the outset, here is THE BELIEVER'S VIEW OF HIS AFFLICTIONS. "The Lord 
hath chastened me sore."

On the surface of the works we see the good man's clear observation that 
his afflictions come from God. It is true he perceived the secondary hand, 
for he says, "Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall." There was 
one at work who aimed to make him fall. His afflictions were the work of 
a cruel enemy. Yes; but that enemy's assaults were being overruled by 
the Lord, and were made to work for his good; so David, in the present 
verse, corrects himself by saying, "The Lord hath chastened me sore. My 
enemy struck at me and he might make me fall; but in very truth my 
gracious God was using him to chasten me that I might not fall. The 
enemy was moved by malice, but God was working by him in love to my 
soul. The second agent sought my ruin, but the Great First Cause 
wrought my education and establishment."

It is well to have grace enough to see that tribulation comes from god: he 
fills the bitter cup as well as the sweet goblet. Troubles do not spring out 
of the dust, neither doth affliction grow up from the ground, like 
hemlock from the furrows of the field; but the Lord himself kindles the 
fiery furnace, and sits as a refiner at the door. Let us not dwell too much 
upon the part played by the devil, as though he were a power co-ordinate 
with God. He is a fallen creature, and his very existence depends upon 
the will and permission of the Most High. His power is borrowed, and 
can only be used as the infinite omnipotence of God permits. His 
wickedness is his own, but his existence is not self-derived. Blame the 
devil, and blame all of his servants as much as you will; but still believe 
in the mysterious and consoling truth that, in the truest sense, the Lord 
sends trials upon his saints. "Explain this statement," say you. Oh, no; I 
am not called upon to explain it, but to believe it. A great many things, 
when they are said to be explained by modern thinkers, are merely 
explained away, and I have not yet begun to learn that wretched art. 
Remember how Peter told the Jews that he, whom God by his 
determinate counsel and foreknowledge decreed to die, even his son 
Jesus Christ, nevertheless taken by them with wicked hands, when they 
had crucified and slain him. The death of Christ was pre-determined in 
the counsel of God, and yet it was none the less an atrocious crime on the 
part of ungodly men. The omnipotence and providence of God are to be 
believed; but man's responsibility is not therefore to be questioned. Our 
afflictions may come distinctly from man, as the result of persecution or 
malice; and yet they may come with even greater certainty from the 
Lord, and may be the needful outcome of his special love to us.

For this reason we may wisely moderate our anger against second causes. 
If you strike a dog with a stick, he will bite the stick; if he were more 
intelligent, he would snap at the person using the stick; and, if that 
intelligence were governed by the spirit of obedience, he would yield to 
the blow, and learn a lesson from it. Thus, when Shimei reviled David, 
and Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said unto king, "Why should this dead 
dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his 
head;" David meekly replied, "So let him curse, because the Lord hath 
said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hath thou 
done so?" A sight of God's hand in a trial is the end of rebellion against 
it in the case of every good man. He says, "It is the Lord: let him do what 
seemeth him good." We may lie at his feet, and cry, "Shew me wherefore 
thou contendest with me;" but, if the reason does not appear, we must 
bow in reverent submission, and say with one of old, "I was dumb, I 
opened not my mouth; because thou didst it." Job saw the Lord in his 
many tribulations, and therefore praised him, saying, "The Lord gave, 
and the Lord that taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Surely 
there is nothing better for a man of God than to perceive that his smarts 
and sorrows come from his Father's hand, for then he will say, "The will 
of the Lord be done." This is the great point in the believer's view of his 
afflictions: "He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his 
hands make whole."

Next, the believer perceives that his trials come on as a chastening. "The 
Lord hath chastened me sore." When a child is chastised, two things are 
clear: first, that there is something wrong in him, or that there is 
something deficient in him, so that he needs to be corrected or 
instructed; and, secondly, it shows that his father has a tender care for 
his benefit, and acts in loving wisdom towards him. This is certainly true 
if the father is an eminently kind and yet prudent parent. Children do not 
think that there can be any need for chastening them; but when years 
have matured their judgment, they will know better. "No chastening for 
the present seemeth to be joyous;" if it did seem joyous, it would not be 
chastening. The "need be" is not only that we have manifold trials, but 
that we be in heaviness through them. In the smart of the sorrow lies the 
blessing of the chastisement. God chastens us in the purest love, because 
he sees that there is an absolute necessity for it: "for he doth not afflict 
willingly nor grieve the children of men." Our fathers, according to the 
flesh, too often corrected us according to their own pleasure, and yet we 
gave them reverence; but the Father of our spirits corrects us only of 
necessity--a necessity to which he is too wise to close his eye. Shall we 
not, therefore, pay greater reverence to him, and bow before him, and 
live? When Hezekiah was recovered of his sickness, he wrote, "O Lord, 
by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit." I 
find not that men live by carnal pleasure, nor that the life of the spirit is 
ever found in the wine-vat or in the oil-press; but I do find that life and 
health often come to saints through the briny tears, through the bruising 
of the flesh, and the oppression of the spirit. So have I found it, and I 
bear my willing witness that sickness has brought me health, loss has 
conferred gain, and I doubt not that one day death will bring me fuller 
life.

Be wise then, dear child of God, and look upon your present affliction as 
a chastening. "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" "As 
many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." There is not a more profitable 
instrument in all God's house than the rod. No honey was sweeter than 
that which dropped from the end of Jonathan's rod; but that is nothing to 
the sweetness of the consolation which comes through Jehovah's rod. 
Our brightest joys are the birth of our bitterest griefs. When the woman 
has her travail pangs, joy comes to the house because the man-child is 
born; and sorrow is to us also, full often, the moment of the birth of our 
graces. A chastened spirit is a gracious spirit; and how shall we obtain it 
except we are chastened? Like our Lord Jesus, we learn obedience by the 
things which we suffer. God had one Son without sin, but he never had a 
son without sorrow, and he never will have while the world stands. Let 
us, therefore, bless God for all his dealings, and in a filial spirit confess, 
"Thou, Lord, hast chastened me."

Consider the psalmist's view of his affliction a little more carefully. He 
noted that his trials were sore: he says, "The Lord hath chastened me 
sore." Perhaps we are willing to own in general that our trouble is of the 
Lord; but there is a soreness in it which we do not ascribe to him, but to 
the malice of the enemy, or some other second cause. The false tongue is 
so ingenious in slander that it has touched the tenderest part of our 
character, and has cur us to the quick. Are we to believe that this also is, 
in some sense, of the Lord? Assuredly we are. If it be not of the Lord, 
then it is a matter for despair. If this evil comes apart from divine 
permission, where are we? How can a trial be met which is independent 
of divine rule, and outside of the sacred zone of providential 
government? It is hopeful when we find that all our ills lie within the 
ring-fence of omnipotent overruling. It is one comfort that we see a wall 
of fire round about us, a circle so complete that even the devil, malicious 
as he is, cannot break through it, to do more than the Lord allows. The 
camels are gone, the sheep, the oxen, the servants, all are destroyed: all 
this is most trying; but it is still true--"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." But, see, another 
messenger comes, and cries, "There came a great wind from the 
wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the 
young men, and they are dead." Might not Job, then, have said, "This is 
a blow which I cannot bear; for it is evidently from the prince of the 
power of the air"? No, but even after that, he said, "Blessed be the name 
of the Lord." When his wife said, "Curse God, and die," he still blessed 
God, and held his integrity. He told her that she spoke as one of the 
foolish speaketh, and then he wisely added, "Shall we receive good at the 
hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" "In all this Job sinned not, 
nor charged God foolishly." May we stand fast in patience as he did, 
even when our troubles overflow!

It is folly to imagine, as we have sometimes done, the we could bear 
anything except that which we are called upon to endure. We are like the 
young man who says he wants a situation. What can you do? He can do 
anything. That man you never engage, because you know that he can do 
nothing. So it is with us. If we say, "I could bear anything but this," we 
prove our universal impatience. If we had the choice of our crosses, the 
one we should choose would turn out to be more inconvenient than that 
which God appoints for us; and yet we will have it that our present cross 
is unsuitable and specially galling. I would say to any who are of that 
mind, "If your burden does not fit your shoulder, bear it till it does." 
Time will reconcile you to the yoke if grace abides with you. It is not for 
us to choose our affliction; that remains with him who chooses our 
inheritance for us. Read well this word, "The Lord hath hastened me 
sore," and see the Lord's hand in the soreness of your trial. Even while 
the wound is raw, and the smart is fresh; be conscious that the Lord is 
near.

Yet there is in the verse a "but", for the psalmist perceives that his trial 
is limited; "but he hath not given me over to death." Certain of the buts 
in Scripture are among the choicest jewels we have. Before us is a "but" 
which shows that, however deep affliction may be, there is a bottom to 
the abyss. There is a limit to the force, the sharpness, the duration and 
the number of our trials.

                     "If God appoints the number ten,
                        They ne'er can be eleven."

Whenever the Lord mixes a potion for his people, he weighs each 
ingredient, measures the bitters, grain by grain, and allows not even a 
particle in excess to mingle in the draught. Like a careful dispenser, he 
will not pour out a drop too little or too much.

                  "To his church, his joy, and treasure,
                        Every trial works for good:
                   They are dealt in weight and measure,
                        Yet how little understood;
                               Not in anger,
                     But from his dear covenant love."

Our Father's anger at our sin will never blaze into wrath against us, 
though in mercy he will smite our sins. Remember, then, this gracious 
boundary. "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me 
over unto death." We have never yet experienced a trouble which might 
not have been worse. One affliction kills another: the wind never blows 
east and west at the same time. When the Lord smites you abound, so do 
consolations abound through Christ Jesus. The whole band of troubles 
never comes forth at once. Everything painful is graded and 
proportioned to the man and his strength, and the object for which it is 
sent. With the trial the Lord makes the way of escape that we may be 
able to bear it. Faith can see an end and limit where natures dim eye sees 
endless confusion. Where the carnal sense--

                    "Sees every day new straits attend,
                  And wonders where the scene will end,"

faith looks over the intervening space, and comforts herself with that 
which is yet to come. Faith sings pleasant songs when she foots it over 
weary roads.

              "The road may be rough, but it cannot be long,
          So let's smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song."

The Lord keep your faith alive, my brethren and sisters, and then 
whatever trials surge around you, you will sit on the Rock of ages, above 
the waves, and joyfully sing praises unto your divine Deliverer! Oh, how 
sweet to say, as I now do, "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath 
not given me over unto death"! 

II. This brings me secondly, to consider THE BELIEVER'S COMFORT UNDER HIS 
AFFLICTIONS. The believer's comfort under his afflictions is this--"I shall 
not die, but live." 

Occasionally this comes in the form of a presentiment. I do not think 
that I am superstitious: I fancy that I am pretty clear of that vice; yet I 
have had presentiments concerning things to come or not to come; and, 
moreover, I have not met with so many Christian men who, in the time 
of trouble have received singular warnings, or sweet assurances of 
coming deliverance, that I am bound to believe that the Lord does 
sometimes whisper to the heart of his children, and assure them in trial 
that they shall not be crushed, and in sickness that they shall not die. 
How do you understand the story of John Wycliffe, at Lutterworth, in any 
other way than this? He had been speaking against the monks, and 
various abuses of the church. He was the first man known to history that 
preached the gospel in England during the Popish ages--we know him as 
the Morning Star of the Reformation. He was a man so great that, if he 
had possessed a printing-press, we might never have needed a Luther; 
for he had an even clearer light than that great Reformer. He lacked the 
means of spreading his doctrine, which the art of printing supplied. He 
did much: he prepared everything to Luther's hand: and Luther was but 
the proclaimer of Wycliffe's doctrine. Wycliffe was ill--very ill, and the 
friars came round him, like crows round a dying sheep. They professed 
to be full of tender pity; but they were right glad that their enemy was 
going to die. So they said to him, "Do you not repent? Before we can 
give you viaticum--the last oiling before you die--would it not be well to 
retract the hard things which you have said against the zealous friars, 
and his Holiness of Rome? We are eager to forget the past, and give you 
the last sacrament in peace." Wycliffe begged an attendant to help him 
sit up; and then he cried with all his strength, "I shall not die, but 
live, to declare the works of the Lord, and to expose the wickedness of the 
friars." He did not die, either: death himself could not have killed him 
then; for he had work to do, and the Lord made him immortal until it 
was done. How could Wycliffe know that he spoke truly? Certainly he 
was free from all foolhardy brag; but there was upon his mind a 
foreshadowing of future work that he had to do, and he felt that he could 
not die until it was accomplished. Now, do not be making up 
presentiments about all sorts of things because I have said that 
sometimes the Lord grants them to his saints. This would be a 
mischievous piece of absurdity. I remember a young woman, who lived 
not far from here, who had a presentiment that she would die. I do not 
think that there was really much the matter with her; but she refused to 
eat, and was likely to be starved. I went to see her, and she told me that 
she had a presentiment that she should die, and therefore she should not 
waste food by eating it. She spoke to me very solemnly about this 
presentiment, and I replied, "I believe there may be such things." Yes: 
she was sure I was on her side! Then I went on to say, I once had a 
presentiment that I was a donkey, and it turned out true in my case; and 
now I had much the same presentiment about her. This surprised her, 
and I asked her friends to bring her food. She said she would not eat it; 
and then I told her that if she was resolved on suicide, I would mention it 
at church-meeting that evening, and put her out of the church, since 
would could not have suicides in our membership. She could not bear to 
be put out of the church, and began to eat, and it turned out that my 
presentiment about her was correct; she had been foolish, and she had 
the good sense to see that it was so. I felt bound to tell you this story, 
lest you should fancy that I would support you in sentimental nonsense. 
While there are so many stupid people in the world, we have no need to 
give cautions where the wise do not need them. Forecasts of good from 
the Lord may come to those who are sore sick; and when they do, they 
help them to recover. We are of good courage when an inward 
confidence enables us to say, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the 
works of the Lord."

This, however, I only mention by the way. When a believer is in trouble 
he derives great comfort from his reliance upon the compassion of God. 
The Lord scourges his sons, but he does not slay them. The believer says, 
"My Father may make me smart with the blow of a cruel one; but he will 
do me no real harm, nor allow anyone else to injure me. He will not lay 
upon me more than is right, nor above what I am able to bear. He will 
stay his hand when he sees that I have no strength left. Moreover, I know 
that even when he brings me very low, still underneath me are the 
everlasting arms. If the Lord kill, it is only to make alive: if he wound, it 
is that he may heal. I am sure of that." O believer, never let anything 
drive you away from this confidence, for it has sure truth for its 
foundation! The Lord is good, and his mercy endureth forever. It is not 
killing, but curing, that God means when he takes the sharp lancet in his 
hand. The nauseous medicine, which makes the heart sick, works for the 
cure of a worse sickness. "His compassions fail not." He may often put 
his hand into the bitter box, but he has sweet cordials ready to take the 
taste away. For a small moment has he forsaken us, but with great 
mercies will he return to us. You have an effectual comfort if your faith 
can keep its hold upon the blessed fact of the Lord's fatherly compassion. 

Next, faith comforts the tried child of God by assuring him of the 
forgiveness of his sin, and his security from punishment. Please to notice 
the very distant difference between chastisement and punishment. I do 
not say between the meaning of the words, but between the two things 
which I just now would indicate by those terms. Here is a boy who has 
committed a theft. He is brought before the magistrate that he may be 
punished. Punitive justice will be executed upon him by imprisonment or 
by a birch rod. Another boy has also stolen--stolen from his father, and 
he is brought before his father, not to be punished as a law-breaker, but 
to be chastised. There is a great difference between the punishment 
awarded by justice and the chastisement appointed by love. They may be 
alike in painfulness, but how different in meaning! The father does not 
give to the child what he would deserve if it were a punishment 
according to the law, but what he thinks will cure him of the wrong-
doing by making him feel that his sin brings sorrow. The magistrate, 
although he desires the good of the offender, has mainly to consider the 
law in its bearings upon the whole mass of the population, and he 
punishes as a matter of justice that which wrongs the commonwealth; 
but the parent acts on other principles. "The Lord hath chastened me 
sore," and in that he has added a fatherly part; "but he hath not given me 
over unto death" which would have been my lot if he had dealt with me 
as a judge. My heart trembles at his sword, and cries, "Enter not into 
judgment with thy servant, O Lord: for in thy sight shall no man living 
be justified." The sentence of justice has been fulfilled upon our Lord, 
and our comfort is that now there is nothing punitive in all our troubles. 
"He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to 
our iniquities;" nor will he do so, for he has already laid our sins upon 
Christ, and Christ has vindicated the law by bearing its penalty, so that 
nothing more in the way of penalty is demanded by the moral 
government of God. That which we receive from the rod of the Lord 
bears the blessed aspect of chastening from a father's hand; and this is a 
gladsome fact, which makes even the sharpest smart to be profitable. 
"Surely the bitterness of death is past," when, in the case of the believer, 
even death has ceased to be the penalty of sin, and is changed into a 
sweet falling asleep upon the bosom of the Well-Beloved, to wake up in 
his likeness. Every other affliction is changed in the same fashion. Our 
wasps have become bees: their sting is not the prominent thought, but 
the honey which they lay up in store. "All things work together for good 
to them that love God," and chastisement is chief among those "all 
things." What a well of comforting thought is here! 

Furthermore, it is a great blessing to a child of God to feel a full 
assurance that he has eternal life in Christ Jesus. "The Lord hath 
chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death." Notice the 
words, "Given me over." It is the most awful thing out of hell to be given 
over by God. I fear that there are some such persons. Does not the 
psalmist refer to such when he says, "They are not in trouble as other 
men; neither are they plagued like other men. Their eyes stand out with 
fatness: they have more than heart could wish"? While God's own people 
are chastened every morning, and plagued all day long, the ungodly 
prosper in the world, and increase in riches. Of his chosen the Lord says, 
"You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will 
punish you for all your iniquities." But those who are not the Lord's are 
left unchastened, because the Lord hath said of them, "Let them alone, 
they are given unto idols." They are allowed their transient mirth; let 
them make the most they can of it, for their end will be desolation. 
Unbroken prosperity and undisturbed health may be signs of being 
"given over unto death"; and they are in such cases where sin is 
committed without pangs of conscience, or apprehensions of judgment. 
Such freedom from fear may be maintained even in death: "There are no 
bands in their death: but their strength is firm." All goes quietly with 
them; "Like sheep they are laid in the grave." But "in hell they lift up 
their eyes, being in torments." To be given over unto death is often 
followed by callousness, presumption, and bravado; but it is a dreadful 
doom, the direst sentence from the throne of judgment as to this life. But 
you, dear child of God, have this comfort, he has not given you over, he 
is thinking upon you. Men do not prune the vine they mean to uproot; 
nor thresh out the weeds which they mean to burn. He who is chastened 
is not given over to destruction. Years ago, I was taken very ill, in 
Marseilles, while attempting to come home to England. As I lay in bed, 
it seemed as if the cruel mistral wind was driving through my bones, and 
breaking them with agony. I ordered a fire to be kindled; but when I saw 
the man begin to light it with a bundle of little branches, I cried out to 
him, "Pray let me look at that." I found that he was using the dry 
prunings of the vine, and my tears were in my eyes as I remembered the 
words--"Men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are 
burned." Comfort followed, for I thought, "I am not feeling, like those 
dried-up shoots; but I am the bleeding vine, which is sharply cut with the 
pruning-knife; I feel the keen blade in every part of me." Then I could 
say, "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over." 
What joy lies in this, "He hath not given me over"! As long as the father 
chastens his boy, he has hope of him; if he ceased to do so altogether, we 
might fear that he thought him too bad to be reclaimed. Be glad, then, 
dear child of God, that since the Lord chastens you sore, he has not 
erased your name from his heart, and his hands, nor yielded you up to 
your enemy's power. 

Another meaning may be found in this text, "I shall not die, but live, and 
declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he 
hath not given me over unto death." We are comforted by reliance upon 
God's power for success in our life-work. The critics said--and I must 
quote this because this sermon is very much a personal one--the critics 
said, when the lad commenced his preaching, that it was a nine days' 
wonder, and would soon come to an end. When the people joined the 
church in great numbers, they were "a parcel of boys and girls." Many of 
those "boys and girls" are here to-night, faithful to God unto this hour. 
Then there came upon me a heavy, heavy stroke--a sore chastening, 
which those of us who were present would never forget if we live for a 
century; and we seemed to be made the reproach of all men, through an 
accident which we could not have foreseen or prevented. But still the 
testimony for God in this place, by the same voice, has not ceased , nor 
lost its power. Still the people throng to hear the gospel after these thirty 
years and more, and still the doctrines of grace are to the front, not-
withstanding the opposition. In the darkest hour of my ministry I might 
have declared, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the 
Lord." If you have been set on fire by a divine truth, the world cannot put 
an extinguisher upon you. That candle which God has lighted, the devils 
of hell cannot blow out. If you are commissioned of God to do a good 
work, give your whole heart to it, trust in the Lord, and you will not fail. 
I bear my joyful witness to the power of God to work mightily by the 
most insignificant of instruments.

                  "The feeblest saint shall win the day,
                 Though death and hell obstruct the way."

Once more, though we may die, we are sustained by the expectation of 
immortality. When we gather up our feet in the last bed, we may utter 
this text in a full and sweet sense, "I shall not die, but live." When 
Wycliffe died as to his body, the real Wycliffe did not die. Some of his 
books were carried to Bohemia, and John Huss learned the gospel from 
them, and began to preach. They burnt John Huss, and Jerome of Prague; 
but Huss foretold, as he died, that another would arise after him, whom 
they should not be able to put down; and in due time he more than lived 
again in Luther. Is Luther dead? Is Calvin dead to-day? That last man 
the moderns have tried to bury in a dunghill of misrepresentation; but he 
lives, and will live, and the truths that he taught will survive all the 
calumniators that have sought to poison it. Die! Often the death of a man 
is a kind of new birth to him; when he himself is gone physically, he 
spiritually survives, and from the grave there shoots up a tree of life 
whose leaves heal nations. O worker for God, death cannot touch thy 
sacred mission! Be thou content to die if the truth shall live better 
because thou diest. Be thou content to die, because death may be to thee 
enlargement of thine influence. Good men die as dies seed-corn which 
thereby abideth not alone. When saints are apparently laid in the earth, 
they quit the earth, and rise and mount to heaven-gate, and enter into 
immortality. No, when the sepulchre receives this mortal frame, we shall 
not die, but live. Then shall we come to our true stature and beauty, and 
put on our royal robes, our glorious Sabbath-dress.

III. So I finish with just two or three words on THE BELIVER'S CONDUCT 
AFTER TROUBLE AND DELIVERANCE. "I shall not die, but live, and declare the 
works of the Lord."

Here is declaration. If we had no troubles, we should all have the less to 
declare. A person who has no experience of tribulation, what great 
deliverance has he to speak of? Such persons despise the afflicted, and 
suspect the character of the choicest of men, for lack of power to 
understand them. What does the man know about the sea who has only 
walked on the beach? Get with an old sailor, who has been a dozen times 
around the world, and often wrecked, and he will interest you. So the 
much-tried Christian has great wonders to declare, and these are chiefly 
the works of the Lord; for "they that go down to the sea in ships, that do 
business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his 
wonders in the deep." Tried Christians see how God sustains in trouble, 
and how he delivers out of it, and they declare his works openly: they 
cannot help doing so. They are so interested themselves in what God has 
done that they grow enthusiastic over it; and if they held their peace, the 
stones would cry out.

If you read the chapter further down, you will find that they not only give 
forth a declaration, but they offer adoration. They are so charmed with 
what God has done for them, that they laud and magnify the name of the 
Lord, saying, "I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become 
my salvation." The saints of God, when they are rescued from their 
sorrows, are sure to sing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit 
hath rejoiced in God my saviour."

This done, they make a further dedication of themselves to their 
delivering God. As the psalm puts it, "God is the Lord, which hath 
shewed us light." It was very dark! It was very, very dark! We could not 
see our hand, much less the hand of God! We were frozen with fear. We 
thought we were as dead men, laid out for burial; when suddenly the 
Lord's face shown in upon us, and all darkness was gone, and we leaped 
into joyful security, crying "God is the Lord, which hath shewed us 
light." We were convinced that it was none other than the true God who 
had removed the midnight gloom. Doubts, infidelities, agnosticisms--
they were impossible. We said, "God is the Lord, which hath shewed us 
light." In the fourth watch of the night, in the prison where the cold 
stone shut us in, where the darkness had never known a candle, there a 
light shone round about us, and an angel smote us on the side, and bade 
us put on our sandals, and gird ourselves, and follow him. We obeyed the 
word, and our chains fell off; and when we came to the iron gate which 
had always been our horror, it opened of its own accord, and we went out 
into the streets of the city, and we scarcely felt that it could be true, but 
thought we saw a vision. But when we had considered the thing, and 
found it was even ourselves, and ourselves set in a large place at perfect 
liberty, then we said, " Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns 
of the altar." God hath showed us light, and we will live to him for ever 
and for ever. Oh, you, tried believers, who have, nevertheless, not been 
given over unto death, who can say to-night, "I shall not die, but live," 
present yourselves anew unto your delivering Lord as living sacrifices 
through Jesus Christ your Lord! Amen.

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