INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, OCTOBER 15TH, 1899, DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 25TH, 1882. “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” — Luke 23:46. “Into thine hard I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed rue, O LORD GOD of truth.” —Psalm 31:5. “And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and asking, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” —Acts 7:59.

THIS morning, See Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1,666, “The First Recorded Words of Jesus.” dear friends, I spoke upon the first recorded word: of our Lord Jesus when he said to his mother and to Joseph, “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business!” Now, by the help of the blessed Spirit, we will consider the last words of our Lord Jesus before he gave up the ghost, and with them we will examine two other passages in which similar expressions are used.

The words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” if we judge them to be the last which our Savior uttered before his death, ought to be coupled with those other words, “It is finished,” which some have thought were actually the last he used. I think it was not so; but, anyhow, these utterances must have followed each other very quickly, and we may blend them together, and then we shall see how very similar they are to his first words as we explained them this morning. There is the cry, “It is finished,” which you may read in connection with our Authorized Version: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” That business was all finished; he had been about it all his life, and now that ho had come to the end of his days, there was nothing left undone, and he could say to his Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Then if you take the other utterance of our Lord on the cross, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” see how well it agrees with the other reading of our morning text, “Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus is putting himself into the Father’s hands because he had always desired to be there, in the Father’s house with the Father; and now be is committing his spirit, as a sacred trust, into the Father’s hands that he may depart to be with the Father, to abide in his house, and go no more out for ever.

Christ’s life is all of a piece, just as the alpha and the omega are letters of the same alphabet. You do not find him one thing at the first, another thing afterwards, and a third thing still later; but he is “Jesus Christ; the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.” There is a wondrous similarity about everything that Christ said and did. You never need write the name “Jesus” under any one of his sayings, as you have to put the names of human writers under their sayings, for there is no mistaking any sentence that he has uttered.

If there is anything recorded as having been done by Christ, a believing child can judge whether it is authentic or not. Those miserable false gospels that were brought out did very little if any mischief, because nobody, with any true spiritual discernment, was ever duped into believing them to be genuine. It is possible to manufacture a spurious coin which will, for a time, pass for a good one; but it is not possible to make even a passable imitation of what Jesus Christ has said and done. Everything about Christ is like himself; there is a Christlikeness about it which cannot be mistaken.

This morning, for instance, when I preached about the Holy Child Jesus, I am sure you must have felt that there was never such another child as he was; and in his death he was as unique as in his birth, and childhood, and life. There was never another who died as he did, and there was never another who lived altogether as he did. Our Lord Jesus Christ stands by himself; some of us try to imitate him, but how feebly do we follow in his steps! The Christ of God still standeth by himself, and there is no possible rival to him.

I have already intimated to you that I am going to have three texts for my sermon; but when I have spoken upon all three of them, you will see that they are so much alike that I might have been content with one of them.

I. I invite you first to consider OUR SAVIOR’ S WORDS JUST BEFORE HIS DEATH: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Here observe, first, how Christ lives and passes away in the atmosphere of the Word of Cod. Christ was a grand original thinker, and he might always have given us words of his own. He never lacked suitable language, for “never man spake like this Man.” Yet you must have noticed how continually he quoted Scripture; the great majority of his expressions may be traced to the Old Testament. Even where they are not exact quotations, his wards drop into Scriptural shape and form. You can see that the Bible has been his one Book. He is evidently familiar with it from the first page to the last, and not with its letter only, but with the innermost soul of it most secret sense; and, therefore, when dying, it seemed but natural for him to use a passage from a Psalm of David as his expiring words. In his death, he was not driven beyond the power of quiet thought, he was not unconscious, he did not die of weakness, he was strong even while he was dying. It is true that he said, “I thirst;” but, after he had been a little refreshed, he cried with a loud voice, as only a strong man could, “It is finished.” And now, ere he bows his head in the silence of death, he utters his final words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Our Lord might, I say again, have made an original speech as his dying declaration; his mind was clear, and calm, and undisturbed; in fact, he was perfectly happy, for he had said, “It is finished.” So his sufferings were over, and he was already beginning to enjoy a taste of the sweets of victory; yet, with all that clearness of mind, and freshness of intellect, and fluency of words that might have been possible to him, he did not invent a new sentence, but he went to the Book of Psalms, and took from the Holy Spirit this expression, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

How instructive to us is this great truth that the Incarnate Word lived on the Inspired Word! It was food to him, as it is to us; and, brothers and sisters, if Christ thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same! He, in some respects, did not, need this Book as much as we do.

The Spirit of God rested upon him without measure, yet he loved the Scripture, and he went to it, and studied it, and used its expressions continually. Oh, that, you and I might get into the very heart of the Word of God, and get that Word into ourselves! As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf, and consume it, so ought we to do with the Word of the Lord; not crawl ever its surface, but eat right into it till we have taken it into our inmost parts. It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord. I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Ideal anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. He had studied our Authorized Version, which will never be bettered, as I judge, till Christ shall come; he had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, “Why, this man is a living Bible!” Prick him anywhere; his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved, and, still more, the example of our Lord Jesus. If the Spirit of God be in you, he will make you. love the Word of God; and, if any of you imagine that the Spirit of God will lead you to dispense with the Bible, you are under the influence of another spirit which is not the Spirit of God at all. I trust that the Holy Spirit will endear to you every page of this Divine Record, so that you will feed upon it yourselves, and afterwards speak it out to others. I think it is well worthy of your constant remembrance that, even in death, our blessed Master showed the ruling passion of his spirit, so that his last words were a quotation from Scripture.

Now notice, secondly, that our Lord, in the moment of his death, recognized a personal God: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

God is to some men an unknown God. “There may be a God,” so they say, but they get no nearer the truth than that. “All things are God,” says another. “We cannot be sure that there is a God,” say others, “and therefore it is no use our pretending to believe in him, and so to he, possibly, influenced by a supposition.” Some people say, “Oh, certainly, there is a God, but he is very far off! He does not come near to us, and we cannot imagine that he will interfere in our affairs.” Ah! but our blessed Lord Jesus Christ believed in no such impersonal, pantheistic, dreamy, faroff God; but in One to whom he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” His language shows that he realized the personality of God as much as I should recognize the personality of a banker if I said to him, “Sir, I commit that money into your hands.” I know that I should not say such a thing as that to a mere dummy, or to an abstract something or nothing; but to a living man I should say it, and I should say it only to a living man. So, beloved, men do not commit their souls into the keeping of impalpable nothings; they do not, in death, smile as they resign themselves to the infinite unknown, the cloudy Father of everything, who may himself be nothing or everything. No, no; we only trust what we know; and so Jesus knew the Father, and knew him to be a real Person having hands, into those hands he commended his departing spirit. I am not now speaking materially, mark you, as though God had hands like ours; but he is an actual Being, who has powers of action, who is able to deal with men as ho pleases, and who is willing to take possession of their spirits, and to protect them for ever and ever. Jesus speaks like one who believed that; and I pray that, both in life and in death, you and I may ever deal with God in the same way. We have far too much fiction in religion, and a religion of fiction will bring only fictitious comfort in the dying hour. Come to solid facts, man. Is God as real to thee as thou art to thyself? Come now; dost thou speak with him “as a man speaketh unto his friend”? Canst thou trust him, and rely upon him as thou dost trust and rely upon the partner of thy bosom? If thy God be unreal, thy religion is unreal. If thy God be a dream, thy hope will be a dream; and woe be unto thee when thou shalt wake up out of it! It was not so that Jesus trusted. “Father,” said he, “into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

But, thirdly, here is a better point still. Observe how Jesus Christ here brings out the Fatherhood of God. The Psalm from which he quoted did not say, “Father.” David did not get as far as that in words, though in spirit he often did; but Jesus had the right to alter the Psalmist’s words. He can improve on Scripture, though you and I cannot. He did not say, “O God, into thine hand I commit my spirit;” but he said, “Father.” Oh, that sweet word! That was the gem of our thought, this morning, that Jesus said, “Wist ye not that I must be at my Father’s,— that I must be in my Father’s house!” Oh, yes! the Holy Child knew that he was specially, and in a peculiar sense, the Son of the Highest; and therefore he said, “My Father;” and, in dying, his expiring heart was buoyed up and comforted with the thought that God was his Father. It was because he said that God was his Father that they put him to death, yet he still stood to it even in his dying hour, and said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

What a blessed thing it is for us also, my brethren, to die conscious that we are sons of God! Oh, how sweet, in life and in death, to feel in our soul the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, “Abba, Father”! In such a case as that,— It is not death to die.

Quoting the Savior’s words, “It is finished,” and relying upon his Father and our Father, we may go even into the jaws of death without the “quivering lips” of watch we sang just now. Joyful, with all the strength we have, our lips may confidently sing, challenging death and the grave to silence our ever-rising and swelling music. O my Father, my Father, if I am in thy hands, I may die without fear!

There is another thought, however, which is perhaps the chief one of all.

From this passage, we learn that our Divine Lord cheerfully rendered up his soul to his Father when the time had come for him to die: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” None of us can, with strict propriety, use these words. When we come to die, we may perhaps utter them, and God will accept them; these were the very death-words of Polycarp, and Bernard, and Luther, and Melancthon, and Jerome of Prague, and John Huss, and an almost endless list of saints: “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” The Old Testament rendering of the passage, or else our Lord’s version of it, has been turned into a Latin prayer, and commonly used among Romanists almost as a charm; they have repeated the Latin words when dying, or, if they were unable to do so, the priest repeated the words for them, attaching a sort of magical power to that particular formula. But, in the sense in which our Savior uttered these words, we cannot any of us fully use them. We can commit or commend our spirit to God; but yet, brethren, remember that, unless the Lord comes first, we must die; and dying is not an act on our part. We have to be passive in the process, because it is no longer in our power to retain our life. I suppose that, if a man could have such control of his life, it might be questionable when he should surrender it, because suicide is a crime, and no man can be required to kill himself. God does not demand such action as that at any man’s hand; and, in a certain sense, that is what would happen whenever a man yielded himself to death. But there was no necessity for our blessed Lord and Master to die except the necessity which he had taken upon himself in becoming the Substitute for his people. There was not any necessity for his death even at the last moment upon the cross, for, as I have reminded you, he cried with a loud voice when natural weakness would have compelled him to whisper or to sigh. But his life was strong within him; if he had willed to do so, he could have unloosed the nails, and come down into the midst of the crowd that stood mocking him. He died of his own free will, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” A man may righteously surrender his life for the good of his country, and for the safety of others. There leave frequently been opportunities for men to do this, and there have been brave fellows who have worthily done it; but, then, all those men would have had to die at some time or other. They were only slightly anticipating the parament of the debt of nature; but, in our Lord’s case, he was rendering up to the Father the sprit, which he might have kept if he had chosen to do so. “No man taketh it from me,” said he concerning his life; “I lay it down of myself;” and there is here a cheerful willingness to yield up his spirit into his Father’s hands. It is rather remarkable that none of the Evangelists describe our Lord as dying. He did die, but they all speak of him as giving un the ghost,— surrendering to God his spirit. You and I passively die; but he actively yielded up his spirit to his Father. In his case, death was an act; and he performed that act from the glorious motive of redeeming us from death and hell; so, in this sense, Christ stands alone in his death. But, oh, dear brothers and sisters, if we cannot render up our spirit as he did, yet, when our life is taken from us, let us be perfectly ready to give it up. May God bring us into such a state of mind and heart that there shall be no struggling to keep our life, but a sweet willingness to let it ha just as God would have it,— a, yielding up of everything to his hands, feeling sure that, in the world of spirits, our soul shall be quite safe in the Father’s hand, and that, until the resurrection day, the life-germ of the body will be securely in his keeping, and certain that, when the trumpet shall sound, spirit, soul, and body,— that trinity of our manhood,— shall be reunited in the absolute perfection of our being to behold the King in his beauty in the land that is very far off. When God calls us to die, it will be a sweet way of dying if we can, like our Lord, pass away with a text of Scripture upon our lips, with a personal God ready to receive us, with that God recognized distinctly as our Father, and so die joyously, resigning our will entirely to the sweet will of the ever-blessed One, and saying, “It is the Lord,” “my Father,” “let him do as seemeth him good.”

II. My second text is in the 31st Psalm, at the 5th verse; and it is evidently the passage which our Savior had in his mind just then: “Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” It seems to me that THESE ARE WORDS TO BE USED IN LIFE, for this Psalm is not so much concerning the believer’s death as concerning his life.

Is it not very singular, dear friends, that the words which Jesus uttered on the cross you may still continue to users You may catch up their echo, and not only when you come to die, but tonight, tomorrow morning, and as long as you are here, you may still repeat the text the Master quoted, and say, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.”

That is to say, first, let me cheerfully entrust our souls to Cod, and feel that they are quite safe in his hands. Our spirit is the noblest part of our being; our body is only the husk, our spirit is the living kernel, so let us put it into God’s keeping. Some of you have never yet done that, so I invite you to do it now. It is the act of faith which saves the soul, that act which a man performs when he says, “I trust myself to God as he reveals himself in Christ Jesus; I cannot keep myself, but he can keep me; by the precious blood of Christ he can cleanse me; so I just take my spirit, and give it over into the great Father’s hand.” You never really live till you do that; all that comes before that act of full surrender— is death; but when you have once trusted Christ, then you have truly begun to live. And every day, as long as you live, take care that you repeat this process, and cheerfully leave yourselves in God’s hands without any reserve; that is to say, give yourself up to God,— your body, to be healthy or to be sick, to be long-lived or to be suddenly cut off; — your soul and spirit, give them also up to God, to be made happy or to be made sad, just as he pleases. Give your whole self up to him, and say to him, “My Father, make me rich or make me poor, give me eye-sight or make me blind, let me have all my senses or take them away, make me famous or leave me to be obscure; I just give myself up to thee; into thine hand I commit my spirit. I will no longer exercise my own choice, but thou shalt choose my inheritance for me. My times are in thy hands.”

Now, dear children of God, are you always doing this? Have you ever done it? I am afraid that there are some, even among Christ’s professing followers, who kick against God’s will; and even when they say to God, “Thy will be done,” they spoil it by adding, in their own mind, “and my will, too.” They pray, “Lord, make my will thy will,” instead of saying, “Make thy will my will.” Let us each one pray this prayer every day, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” I like, at family prayer, to put myself and all that I have into God’s hands in the morning, and then, at night, just to look between his hands, and see how safe I have been, and then to say to him, “Lord, shut me up again tonight; take care of me all through the nightwatches. ‘Into thine hand I commit my spirit.’” Notice, dear friends, that our second text has these words at the end of it: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” Is not that a good reason for giving yourself up entirely to God? Christ has redeemed you, and therefore you belong to him. If I am a redeemed man, and I ask God to take care of me, I am but asking the King to take care of one of his own jewels,— a jewel that cost him the blood of his heart.

And I may still more specially expect that he will do so, because of the title which is here given to him: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord Cod of truth.” Would he be the God of truth if he began with redemption, and ended with destruction; — if he began by giving his Son to die for us, and then kept back other mercies which we daily need to bring us to heaven?

No; the gift of his Son is the pledge that he will save his people from their sins, and bring them home to glory; and he will do it. So, every day, go to him with this declaration, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” Nay, not only every day, but all through the day. Does a horse run away with you?

Then you cannot do better than say, “Father, into thine hand I commit my spirit.” And if the horse does not run away with you, you cannot do better than say the same words. Have you to go into a house where there is fever; I mean, is it your duty to go there? Then go saying, “Father, into thine hand I commit my spirit.” I would advise you to do this every time you walk down the street, or even while you sit in your own house. Dr. Gill, my famous predecessor, spent very much time in his study; and, one day, somebody said to him, “Well, at any rate, the studious man is safe from most of the accidents of life.” It so happened that, one morning, when the good man left his familiar arm-chair for a little while, there came a gale of wind that blew down a stack of chimneys, which crashed through the roof, and fell right into the place where he would have been sitting if the providence of God had not just then drawn him away; and he said, “I see that we need divine providence to care for us in our studies just as much as in the streets.” “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” I have often noticed that, if any of our friends get into accidents and troubles, it is usually when they are away for a holiday; it is a curious thing, but I have often remarked it. They go out for their health, and come home ill; they leave us with all their limbs whole, and return to us crippled; therefore, we must pray God to take special care of friends in the country o by the sea, and we must commit ourselves to his hands wherever we may be. If we had to go into a lazar-house, we should certainly ask God to protect us from the deadly leprosy; but we ought equally to seek the Lord’s protection while dwelling in the healthiest place or in our own homes.

David said to the Lord, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit;” but let me beg you to add that word which our Lord inserted, “Father.” David is often a good guide for us, but David’s Lord is far better; and if we follow him, we shall improve upon David. So, let us each say, “Father, Father, into thine hand I commit my, spirit.” That is a sweet way of living every day, committing everything to our Heavenly Father’s hand, for that hand can do his child no unkindness. “Father, I might not be able to trust thine angels, but I can trust thee.” The psalmist does not say, “Into the hand of providence I commit my spirit.” Do you notice how men try to get rid of God by saying, “Providence did this,” and “Providence did that,” and “Providence did the other”! If you ask them, “What is providence!”— they will probably reply, “Well, providence is providence.” That is all they can say. There is many a man who talks very confidently about reverencing nature, obeying the laws of nature, noting the powers of nature, and so on.

Step up to that eloquent lecturer, and say to him, “Will you kindly explain to me what nature is?” He answers, “Why, nature, — well, it is — nature.”

Just so, sir; but, then, what is nature? And he says, “Well,— well,— it is nature;” and that is all you will get out of him. Now, I believe in nature, and I believe in providence; but, at the back of everything, I believe in God, and in the God who has hands; — not in an idol that has no hands, and can do nothing,— but in the God to whom I can say, “‘Father, into thine hand I commit my spirit.’ I rejoice that I am able to put myself there, for I feel absolutely safe in trusting myself to thy keeping.” So live, beloved, and you shall live safely, and happily; and yon shall have hope in your life, and hope in your death.

III. My third text will not detain us many minutes; it is intended to explain to us THE USE OF OUR SAVIOR’ S DYING WORDS FOR OURSELVES. Turn to the account of the death of Stephen, in the 7th chapter of Acts, at the 59th verse, and you will see there how far a man of God may dare to go in his last moments in quoting from David and from the Lord Jesus Christ: “And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” So here is a text for us to use when we come to die: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” I have explained to you that, strictly, we can hardly talk of yielding up our spirit, but we may speak of Christ receiving it, and say, with Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

What does this prayer mean? I must just hurriedly give you two or three thoughts concerning it, and so close my discourse. I think this prayer means that, if we can die as Stephen did, we shall die with a certainty of immortality . Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He did not say, “I am afraid my poor spirit is going to die.” No; the spirit is something which still exists after death, something which Christ can receive, and therefore Stephen asks him to receive it. You and I are not going upstairs to die as if we were only like cats and dogs; we go up there to die like immortal beings who fall asleep on earth, and open our eyes in heaven.

Then, at the sound of the archangel’s trumpet, our very body is to rise to dwell again with our spirit; we have not any question about this matter. I think I have told you what an infidel once said to a Christian man, “Some of you Christians have peat fear in dying because you believe that there is another state to follow this one. I have not the slightest fear, for I believe that I shall be annihilated, and therefore all fear of death is gone from me.” “Yes,” said the Christian man, “and in that respect you seem to me to be on equal terms with that bullock grazing over there, which, like yourself, is free from any fear of death. Pray, sir, let me ask you a simple question.

Have you any hope?” “Hope, sir? Hope, sir?. No, I have no hope; of course, I have no hope, sir.” “Ah, then!” replied the other, “despite the fears that sometimes come over feeble believers, they have a hope which they would not and could not give up.” And that hope is, that our spirit — even that spirit which we commit into Jesus Christ’s hands,— shall be “for ever with the Lord.”

The next thought is that, to a man who can die as Stephen did, there w a certainty that Christ is near ,— so near that the man speaks to him, and says, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” In Stephen’s case, the Lord Jesus was so near that the martyr could see him, for he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”

Many dying saints have borne a similar testimony; it is no strange thing for us to hear them say, before they died, that they could see within the pearly gates; and they have told us this with such evident truthfulness, and with such rapture, or sometimes so calmly, in such a businesslike tone of voice, that we were sure that they were neither deceived nor speaking falsehood.

They spake what they knew to be true, for Jesus was there with them. Yes, beloved, before you can call your children about your death-bed, Jesus will be there already, and into his hands you may commit your spirit.

Moreover, there is a certainty that we are quite safe in his hands.

Wherever else we are insecure, if we ask him to receive our spirit, and he receives it, who can hurt us! Who can pluck us out of his hands? Rouse ye, death and hail! Come forth, all ye powers of darkness! What can you do when once a spirit is in the hands of the omnipotent Redeemer? We must be safe there.

Then there is the other certainty, that he is quite willing to take us into his hands . Let us put ourselves into his hands now; and then we need not be ashamed to repeat the operation every day, and we may be sure that we shall not be rejected at the last. I have often told you of the good old woman, who was dying, and to whom someone said, “Are you rot afraid to die?” “Oh, no;” she replied, “there is nothing at all to fear. I have dipped my foot in the river of death every morning before I have had my breakfast, and I am not afraid to die now.” You remember that dear saint, who died in the night, and who had left written on a piece of paper by her bedside these lines which, ere she fell asleep, she felt strong enough to pencil down,— Since Jesus is mine, I’ll not fear undressing, But gladly put off these garments of clay; To die in the Lord, is a covenant blessing, Since Jesus to glory thro’ death led the way.

It was well that she could say it, and may we be able to say the same whenever the Master calls us to go up higher! I want, dear friends, that we should all of us have as much willingness to depart as if it were a matter of will with us. Blessed be God, it is not left to our choice, it is not left to our will, when we shall die. God has appointed that day, and ten thousand devils cannot consign us to the grave before our time. We shall not die till God decrees it. Plagues and deaths around me fly, Till he please I cannot die; Not a single shaft can hit Till the God of love sees fit.

But let us be just as willing to depart as if it were really a matter of choice; for, wisely, carefully, coolly, consider that, if it were left to us, we should none of us be wise if we did not choose to go. Apart from the coming of our Lord, the most miserable thing that I know of would be a suspicion that we might not die. Do you know what quaint old Rowland Hill used to say when he found himself getting very old He said, “Surely they must be forgetting me up there;” and every now and then, when some dear old saint was dying, he would say, “When you get to heaven, give my love to John Berridge, and John Bunyan, and ever so many more of the good Johns, and tell them I hope they will see poor old Rowly up there before long.” Well, there was common sense in that wishing to get home, longing to be with God. To be with Christ, is far better than to be here.

Sobriety itself would make us choose to die; well, then, do not let us run back, and become utterly unwilling, and struggle and strive and fret, and fume over it. When I hear of believers who do not like to talk about death, I am afraid concerning them. It is greatly wise to he familiar with cur resting-place. When I went, recently, to the cemetery at Norwood, to lay the body of our dear brother Perkins there for a little while, I felt that it was a healthy thing for me to stand at the grave’s brink, and to walk amid that forest of memorials of the dead for this is where I, too, must go. Ye living men, come and view the ground where you must shortly lie; and, as it must be so, let us who are believers welcome it.

But, what if you are not believers! Ah! that is another matter altogether. If you have not believed in Christ, you may well be afraid even to rest on the seat where you are sitting. I wonder that the earth itself does not say, “O God, I will not hold this wretched sinner up any longer! Let me open my mouth, and swallow him!” All nature must hate the man who hates God.

Surely, all things must loathe to minister to the life of a man who does not live unto God. Oh that you would seek the Lord, and trust Christ, and find eternal life! If you have done so, do not be afraid to go forth to live, or to die, just as God pleases.

EXPOSITION

JOHN 15:1-8.

Verse 1. I am the true vine, Now we know where to find the true Church. It is to be found only in Christ and in those who are joined to him in mystical but real union: “I am the true vine,” 1. And my Father is the husbandman.

Now we know who is the true Guardian of the Church. Not the so-called “holy father” at Rome, but that Father above, who is the true Guardian, Ruler, Keeper, Preserver, Purifier, Husbandman of the one Church, the vine. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: There are many such branches, in Christ’s visible Church, which are not fruit-bearing branches, and consequently are not partakers of the sap of life and grace which flows into the branches that are vitally joined to the central stem. These fruitless branches are to be taken away. 2. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

There is some work, then, for the knife upon all the branches; cutting off for those that are fruitless, cutting for those that are bearing some fruit, that they may bring forth yet more. 3. Now ye are clean [purged] through the word which I have spoken unto you.

The Word is often the knife with which the great Husbandman prunes the vine; and, brothers and sisters, if we were more willing to feel the edge of the Word, and to let it cut, away even something that may be very dear to us, we should not need so much pruning by affliction. It is because that first knife does not always produce the desired result that another sharp tool is used by which we are effectually pruned. 4. Abide in me, and I in you. “Do not merely find a temporary shelter in me, as a ship runs into harbor in stormy weather, and then comes out again when the gale is over; but cast anchor in me, as the vessel does when it reaches its desired haven. Be not as branches that are tied on, and so can be taken off, but be livingly joined to me. ‘Abide in me.’” 4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

You must bear fruit, or else be cast away; but yon cannot bear any fruit except by real union and constant communion with Jesus Christ your Lord 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Not merely will you do very little, but you can do nothing at all if you are severed from Christ. Yon are absolutely and entirely dependent upon Christ both for your life and for your fruit-bearing. Do we not wish to have it so, beloved?. It is the incipient principle of apostasy when a man wishes to be independent of Christ in any degree, when he says, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me that I may have something in hand, some spending money of my own.” No; you must, from day to day, from hour to hour, and even from moment to moment, derive life, light, love, everything that is good, from Christ. What a blessing that it is so! 6. If a men, abide not in me. he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

There is a sad future in store for tares, according to another parable; but, somehow, there is a much sadder lot reserved for those that were, in some sense, branches of the vine,— those who made a profession of faith in Christ, though they were never vitally united to him; those who for a while did rum well, yet were hindered. What was it that hindered them that. they should not obey the, truth? Oh, it is sad indeed that any should have had any sort of connection with that divine stem, and yet should be cast into the fire! 7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Do not think that all men can pray alike effectually, for it is not so. There are some whom God will hear, and some whom God will not hear. And there are some even of his own children, whom he will hear in things absolutely vital and essential, to whom he never gave carte blanche after thy fashion: “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” No, if you will not hear God’s words, he will not hear yours; and if his words do not abide in you, your words shall not have power with him. They may be directed to heaven, but the Lord will not listen to them so as to have regard unto them. Oh, it needs very tender walking for one who would be mighty in prayer! You shall find that those who have had their will at the throne of grace are men who have done God’s will in other places; it mast be so. The greatest favorite at court will have a double portion of the jealousy of his monarch, and he must be specially careful that he orders his steps aright, or else the king will not continue to favor him as he was wont to do. There is a sacred discipline in Christ’s house, a part of which consists in this, that, as our obedience to our God declines, so will our power in prayer decrease at the same time. 8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.