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Around the Wicket Gate - Charles H. Spurgeon · The Holiest of All

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  Speaker 1: Preface of Around the wicket Gate by Charles Spurgeon. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Read by Marianne Spiegel Around the wicket
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  Speaker 1: Gate by Charles Spurgeon, preface. Millions of men are in
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  Speaker 1: the outlying regions, far off from God. In peace. For
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  Speaker 1: these we pray, and to these we give warning. But
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  Speaker 1: just now we have to do with a smaller company
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  Speaker 1: who are not far from the Kingdom, but have come
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  Speaker 1: right up to the Wicked Gate, which stands at the
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  Speaker 1: head of the way of life. One would think that
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  Speaker 1: they would hasten to enter, for a free and open
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  Speaker 1: invitation is placed over the entrance. The porter waits to
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  Speaker 1: welcome them. And there is but this one way to
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  Speaker 1: eternal life. He that is most loaded seems the most
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  Speaker 1: likely to pass in and begin the heavenward journey. But
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  Speaker 1: what ails the other men? This is what I want
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  Speaker 1: to find out. Poor fellows. They have come a long
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  Speaker 1: way already to get where they are, and the King's
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  Speaker 1: Highway which they seek is right before them. Why do
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  Speaker 1: they not take the pilgrim road at once. Alas they
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  Speaker 1: have a great many reasons, and foolish as those reasons are,
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  Speaker 1: it needs a very wise man to answer them all.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot pretend to do so. Only the Lord himself
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  Speaker 1: can remove the folly which is bound up in their
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  Speaker 1: hearts and lead them to take the great decisive step.
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  Speaker 1: Yet the Lord works by means, and I have prepared
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  Speaker 1: this little book in the earnest hope that He may
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  Speaker 1: work by it to the blessed end of leading seekers
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  Speaker 1: to an immediate simple trust in the Lord Jesus. He
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  Speaker 1: who does not take the step of faith and so
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  Speaker 1: enter upon the road to Heaven will perish. It will
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  Speaker 1: be an awful thing to die just outside the gate
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  Speaker 1: of life, almost saved, but altogether lost. A man just
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  Speaker 1: outside Noah's ark would be drowned, a manslayer just outside
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  Speaker 1: the wall of the city of Refuge would be slain.
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  Speaker 1: And the man who is within a yard of Christ
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  Speaker 1: and yet has not trusted him will be lost. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: I am in terrible earnest to get my hesitating friends
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  Speaker 1: over the threshold. Come in. Come in is my pressing entreaty.
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  Speaker 1: May the Holy Spirit render it effectual. With many who
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  Speaker 1: shall glance at these pages, may He cause his own
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  Speaker 1: almighty voice to be heard, creating faith at once, My reader,
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  Speaker 1: if God blesses this book to you, do the writer
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  Speaker 1: this favor. Either lend your own copy to one who
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  Speaker 1: is lingering at the gate, or by another, and give
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  Speaker 1: it away. For his great desire is that the this
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  Speaker 1: little volume should be of service to many thousands of souls.
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  Speaker 1: To God, this book is commended, for without his grace
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  Speaker 1: nothing will come of all that is written preface to
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  Speaker 1: the American edition. The host of American Christians who have
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  Speaker 1: had the privilege of listening to the Prince of modern
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  Speaker 1: preachers of the Gospel in his own London tabernacle, and
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  Speaker 1: the countless thousands who have read his printed sermons, have
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  Speaker 1: long desired to see and hear him on this side
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  Speaker 1: of the ocean. The state of his health, however, which
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  Speaker 1: requires frequent respites from his incessant and exhausting labors, precludes
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  Speaker 1: the hope of an American tour, with its inevitable demands
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  Speaker 1: upon his already overburdened strength. All the more on this
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  Speaker 1: account they will welcome a new volume from his pen,
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  Speaker 1: designed for the benefit of a class found in every
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  Speaker 1: Christian community. The object of the deepest concern to the
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  Speaker 1: Church of Christ. A volume written by a master in
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  Speaker 1: Israel who has shown such a profound knowledge both of
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  Speaker 1: the human heart with all its needs, and of the
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  Speaker 1: wisdom and power of God in the Gospel, and who
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  Speaker 1: has been to so many souls the blessed means of
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  Speaker 1: leading them to Christ. This new volume, like the author's
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  Speaker 1: many previous books and tracts, his well organized coal Porter Society,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, testifies to his high appreciation of the power
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  Speaker 1: of the press, and to his desire thus to win
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  Speaker 1: for Christ myriads of those whom his voice cannot reach.
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  Speaker 1: To all who are hovering around the Wicked Gait, or
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  Speaker 1: who even from time to time come within sight of
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  Speaker 1: it and wish they were safe within it, this little
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  Speaker 1: book is commended with the hope that even while they
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  Speaker 1: are reading, they will knock and it shall be open
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  Speaker 1: to them. End of preface. Chapter one of Around the
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  Speaker 1: Wicked Gait or A Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning Faith
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  Speaker 1: in the Lord Jesus Christ, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Marianne.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, awakening great numbers of persons have no concern
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  Speaker 1: about eternal things. They care more about their cats and
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  Speaker 1: dogs than about their souls. It is a great mercy
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  Speaker 1: to be made to think about ourselves and how we
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  Speaker 1: stand towards God and the eternal world. This is full
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  Speaker 1: often a sign that salvation is coming to us by nature.
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  Speaker 1: We do not like the anxiety which spiritual concern causes us,
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  Speaker 1: and we try like sluggards to sleep again. This is
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  Speaker 1: great foolishness, for it is at our peril that we trifle,
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  Speaker 1: when death is so near and judgment is so sure.
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  Speaker 1: If the Lord has chosen us to eternal life, he
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  Speaker 1: will not let us return to our slumber. If we
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  Speaker 1: are sensible, we shall pray that our anxiety about our
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  Speaker 1: souls may never come to an end till we are
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  Speaker 1: really and truly saved. Let us say from our hearts,
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  Speaker 1: he that suffered in my stead, shall my physician be?
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  Speaker 1: I will not be comforted till Jesus comfort me. It
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  Speaker 1: would be an awful thing to go dreaming down to
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  Speaker 1: Hell and there to lift up our eyes with a
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  Speaker 1: great gulf fixed between us and heaven. It will be
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  Speaker 1: equally terrible to be aroused to escape from the wrath,
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  Speaker 1: to come and then to shake off the warning influence
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  Speaker 1: and go back to our insensibility. I notice that those
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  Speaker 1: who overcome their convictions and continue in their sins are
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  Speaker 1: not so easily moved the next time. Every awakening which
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  Speaker 1: is thrown away leaves the soul more drowsy than before,
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  Speaker 1: and less likely to be again stirred to holy feeling. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: our hearts should be greatly troubled at the thought of
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  Speaker 1: getting rid of its trouble in any other way than
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  Speaker 1: the right way. One who had the gout was cured
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  Speaker 1: of it by a quack medicine, which drove the disease within,
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  Speaker 1: and the patient died. To be cured of distress of
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  Speaker 1: mind by a false hope would be a terrible business.
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  Speaker 1: The remedy would be worse than the disease. Better far
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  Speaker 1: that our tenderness of conscience should cause us long years
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  Speaker 1: of anguish, than that we should lose it and perish
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  Speaker 1: in the hardness of our hearts. Yet awakening is not
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  Speaker 1: a thing to rest in or to desire to have
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  Speaker 1: lengthened out month after month. If I start up in
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  Speaker 1: a fright and find my house on fire, I do
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  Speaker 1: not sit down at the edge of my bed, and
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  Speaker 1: say to myself, I hope I am truly awakened. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I am deeply grateful that I am not left to
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  Speaker 1: sleep on. No, I want to escape from threatened death,
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  Speaker 1: and so I hasten to the door or to the window,
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  Speaker 1: that I may get out and may not perish where
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  Speaker 1: I am. It would be a question boon to be aroused,
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  Speaker 1: and yet not to escape from the danger. Remember, awakening
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  Speaker 1: is not salvation. A man may know that he is lost,
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  Speaker 1: and yet he may never be saved. He may be
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  Speaker 1: made thoughtful, and yet he may die in his sins.
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  Speaker 1: If you find out that you are a bankrupt, the
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  Speaker 1: consideration of your debts will not pay them. A man
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  Speaker 1: may examine his wounds all the year round, and they
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  Speaker 1: will be none the nearer being healed because he feels
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  Speaker 1: their smart and notes their number. It is one trick
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  Speaker 1: of the devil to tempt man to be satisfied with
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  Speaker 1: a sense of sin, and another trick of the same
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  Speaker 1: deceiver to insinuate that the sinner may not be content
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  Speaker 1: to trust Christ unless he can bring a certain measure
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  Speaker 1: of despair to add to the Savior's finished work. Our
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  Speaker 1: awakenings are not to help the savior, but to help
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  Speaker 1: us to the Savior. To imagine that my feeling of
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  Speaker 1: sin is to assist in the removal of the sin
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  Speaker 1: is absurd. It is as though I said that water
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  Speaker 1: could not cleanse my face unless I had looked longer
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  Speaker 1: in the glass and had counted the smuts upon my forehead.
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  Speaker 1: A sense of need of salvation by grace is a
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  Speaker 1: very healthful sign, but one needs wisdom to use it aright,
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  Speaker 1: and not to make an idol of it. Some seem
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  Speaker 1: as if they had fallen in love with their doubts
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  Speaker 1: and fears and distresses. You cannot get them away from
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  Speaker 1: their terrors. They seem wedded to them. It is said
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  Speaker 1: that the worst trouble with horses when their stables are
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  Speaker 1: on fire is that you cannot get them to come
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  Speaker 1: out of their stalls. If they would but follow your lead,
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  Speaker 1: they might escape the flames. But they seem to be
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  Speaker 1: paralyzed with fear, so the fear of the fire prevents
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  Speaker 1: their escaping the fire, reader, will your very fear of
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  Speaker 1: the wrath to come prevent your escaping from it? We
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  Speaker 1: hope not one who had long been in prison was
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  Speaker 1: not willing to come out. The door was open, But
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  Speaker 1: he pleaded, even with tears, to be allowed to stay
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  Speaker 1: where he had been so long, fond of prison, wedded
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  Speaker 1: to the iron bolts and the prison affair. Surely the
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  Speaker 1: prisoner must have been a little touched in the head.
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  Speaker 1: Are you willing to remain an awakened one? And nothing more?
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  Speaker 1: Are you not eager to be at once forgiven? If
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  Speaker 1: you would tarry in anguish and dread, surely you too
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  Speaker 1: must be a little out of your mind. If peace
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  Speaker 1: is to be had, have it at once? Why tarry
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  Speaker 1: in the darkness of the pit, wherein your feet sink
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  Speaker 1: in the miry clay there is light to be had, light,
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  Speaker 1: marvelous and heavenly. Why lie in the gloom and die
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  Speaker 1: in anguish? You do not know how near salvation is
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  Speaker 1: to you. If you did, you would surely stretch out
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  Speaker 1: your hand and take it, for there it is, and
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  Speaker 1: it is to be had for the taking. Do not
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  Speaker 1: think that feelings of despair would fit you for mercy?
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  Speaker 1: When the pilgrim, on his way to the wicket gate,
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  Speaker 1: tumbled into the slew of despond, do you think that
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  Speaker 1: when the foul mire of that slew stuck to his garments,
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  Speaker 1: it was a recommendation to him to get him easier
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  Speaker 1: admission at the head of the way. It is not so.
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  Speaker 1: The pilgrim did not think so by any means, neither
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  Speaker 1: may you. It is not what you feel that will
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  Speaker 1: save you, but what Jesus felt. Even if there were
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  Speaker 1: some healing value in feelings, they would have to be
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  Speaker 1: good ones. And the feeling which makes us doubt the
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  Speaker 1: power of Christ to save and prevents our finding salvation
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  Speaker 1: in him, is by no means a good one, but
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  Speaker 1: a cruel wrong to the love of Jesus. Our friend
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  Speaker 1: has come to save us, and had traveled through our
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  Speaker 1: crowded London by rail or tram or omnibus. On a
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  Speaker 1: sudden he turns pale. We ask him what is the matter,
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  Speaker 1: and he answers, I have lost my pocket book, and
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  Speaker 1: it contained all the money that I have in the world.
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  Speaker 1: He goes over the amount to a penny and describes
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  Speaker 1: the checks, bills, notes, and coins. We tell him that
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  Speaker 1: it must be a great consolation to him to be
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  Speaker 1: so accurately acquainted with the extent of his loss. He
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  Speaker 1: does not seem to see the worth of our consolation.
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  Speaker 1: We assure him that he ought to be grateful that
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  Speaker 1: he has so clear a sense of his loss, For
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  Speaker 1: many persons might have lost their pocket books and have
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  Speaker 1: been quite unable to compute their losses. Our friend is, not, however,
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  Speaker 1: cheered in the least. No says he to know my
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  Speaker 1: loss does not help me to recover it. Tell me
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  Speaker 1: where can I find my property? And you have done
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  Speaker 1: me real service. But merely to know my loss is
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  Speaker 1: no comfort whatever. Even so, to believe that you have
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  Speaker 1: sinned and that your soul is forfeited to the justice
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  Speaker 1: of God is a very proper thing, but it will
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  Speaker 1: not save. Salvation is not by our knowing our own ruin,
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  Speaker 1: but by fully grasping the deliverance provided in Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 1: A person who refuses to look to the Lord Jesus
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  Speaker 1: but persists in dwelling upon his sin and ruin reminds
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  Speaker 1: us of a boy who dropped a shilling down an
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  Speaker 1: open grating of a London sewer and lingered there for hours,
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  Speaker 1: finding comfort in saying it rolled in just there, just
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  Speaker 1: between those two iron bars. I sought, go right down,
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  Speaker 1: poor soul. Long might he remember the details of his
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  Speaker 1: loss before he would, in this way get back a
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  Speaker 1: single penny into his pocket, wherewith to buy himself a
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  Speaker 1: piece of bread. You see the drift of the parable
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  Speaker 1: profit by it. End of chapter one, chapter two of
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  Speaker 1: Around the Wicked Gate or a Friendly Talk with Seekers
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  Speaker 1: concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Spurgeon.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Marianne,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter two, Jesus Only. We cannot too often or too
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  Speaker 1: plainly tell the seeking soul that his only hope for
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  Speaker 1: salvation lies in the Lord Jesus Christ. It lies in
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  Speaker 1: him completely only and alone, to save both from the
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  Speaker 1: guilt and the power of sin. Jesus is all sufficient.
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  Speaker 1: His name is called Jesus because he shall save his
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  Speaker 1: people from their sins. The son of Man hath power
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  Speaker 1: on earth to forgive sins. He is exalted on high
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  Speaker 1: to give repentance and remission of sins. It pleased God
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  Speaker 1: from of old to devise a method of salvation which
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  Speaker 1: should be all contained in his only begoda son, the
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  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus. For the working out of this salvation, became man,
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  Speaker 1: and being found in fashion as a man, became obedient
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  Speaker 1: to death, even the death of the cross. If another
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  Speaker 1: way of deliverance had been possible, the cup of bitterness
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  Speaker 1: would have passed from him. It stands to reason that
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  Speaker 1: the darling of Heaven would not have died to save
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  Speaker 1: us if we could have been rescued at less expense,
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  Speaker 1: Infinite grace provided the great sacrifice, infinite love submitted to
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  Speaker 1: death for our sakes? How can we dream that there
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  Speaker 1: can be another way than the way which God has
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  Speaker 1: provided at such cost, and set forth that holy scripture
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  Speaker 1: so simply and so pressingly. Surely it is true that
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  Speaker 1: neither is there salvation in any other for there is
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  Speaker 1: none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we
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  Speaker 1: must be saved. Tis suppose that the Lord Jesus has
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  Speaker 1: only half saved men, and that there is needed some
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  Speaker 1: work or feeling of their own to finish His work
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  Speaker 1: is wicked. What is there of ours that could be
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  Speaker 1: added to his blood and righteousness? All our righteousnesses are
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  Speaker 1: as filthy rags. Can these be patched on to the
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  Speaker 1: costly fabric of his divine righteousness? Rags and fine white linen,
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  Speaker 1: our dross and his pure gold? It is an insult
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  Speaker 1: to the Savior to dream of such a thing. We
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  Speaker 1: have sinned enough without adding this to all our other offenses,
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  Speaker 1: even if we had any righteousness in which we could boast.
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  Speaker 1: If our fig leaves were broader than usual and were
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  Speaker 1: not so utterly fading, it would be wisdom to put
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  Speaker 1: them away and accept that righteousness, which must be far
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  Speaker 1: more pleasing to God than anything of our own. The
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  Speaker 1: Lord must see more that is acceptable in his son
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  Speaker 1: than in the best of us, the best of us.
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  Speaker 1: The words seem satirical, though they were not so intended.
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  Speaker 1: What best is there about any of us? There is
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  Speaker 1: none that doeth good? No, not one. I who write
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  Speaker 1: these lines would most freely confess that I have not
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  Speaker 1: a thread of goodness of my own. I could not
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  Speaker 1: make up so much as a rag or a peace
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  Speaker 1: of a rag. I am utterly destitute. But if I
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  Speaker 1: had the fairest suit of good works, which even pride
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  Speaker 1: can imagine, I would tear it up that I might
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  Speaker 1: put on nothing but the garments of salvation, which are
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  Speaker 1: freely given by the Lord Jesus, out of the heavenly
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  Speaker 1: wardrobe of his own merits. It is most glorifying to
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  Speaker 1: our Lord Jesus Christ that we should hope for every
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  Speaker 1: good thing from him alone. This is to treat him
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  Speaker 1: as he deserves to be treated, for he is God,
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  Speaker 1: and beside him there is none else. We are bound
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  Speaker 1: to look unto him and be saved. This is to
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  Speaker 1: treat him as he loves to be treated, for he
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  Speaker 1: bids all those who labor and are heavy laden to
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  Speaker 1: come to him, and he will give them rest. To
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  Speaker 1: imagine that he cannot save to the uttermost is to
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  Speaker 1: limit the Holy One of Israel and to put a
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  Speaker 1: slur upon his power, or else to slander the loving
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  Speaker 1: heart of the friend of sinners and cast a doubt
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  Speaker 1: upon his love. In either case we should commit a
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  Speaker 1: cruel and wanton sin against the tenderest points of his honor,
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  Speaker 1: which are his ability and willingness to save all that
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  Speaker 1: come unto God by him. The child in danger of
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  Speaker 1: the fire just clings to the fireman and trust to
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  Speaker 1: him alone. She raises no question about the strength of
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  Speaker 1: his limbs to carry her, or the zeal of his
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  Speaker 1: heart to rescue her. But she clings. The heat is terrible,
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  Speaker 1: the smoke is blinding, but she clings, and her deliverer
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  Speaker 1: quickly bears her to safety in the same childlike confidence,
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  Speaker 1: cleaning to Jesus, who can and will bear you out
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  Speaker 1: of danger from the flames of sin. The nature of
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  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus should inspire us with the fullest confidence.
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  Speaker 1: As he is God, he is almighty to save, as
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  Speaker 1: he is man, he is filled with all fullness to bless.
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  Speaker 1: As he is God and man in one majestic person,
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  Speaker 1: he meets man in his creatureship, and God in his holiness.
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  Speaker 1: The latter is long enough to reach from Jacob prostrate
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  Speaker 1: on the earth to Jehovah reigning in heaven. To bring
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  Speaker 1: another latter would be to suppose that he failed to
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  Speaker 1: bridge the distance, and this would be grievously to dishonor him.
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  Speaker 1: If even to add to his words is to draw
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  Speaker 1: a curse upon ourselves, what must it be to pretend
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  Speaker 1: to add to himself? Remember that he himself is the way.
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  Speaker 1: And to suppose that we must, in some manner add
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  Speaker 1: to the divine road is to be arrogant enough to
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  Speaker 1: think of adding to him. Away with such a notion
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  Speaker 1: loathed as you would blasphemy, for in essence, it is
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  Speaker 1: the worst of blasphemy against the Lord of Love. To
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  Speaker 1: come to Jesus with a price in our hand would
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  Speaker 1: be insufferable pride. Even if we had any price that
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  Speaker 1: we could bring. What does he need of us? What
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  Speaker 1: could we bring? If he did need it? Would he
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: sell the priceless blessings of his redemption, that which he
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: wrought out in his heart's blood? Would he barter it
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: with us for our tears and vows, or for ceremonial
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: observations and feelings and works. He is not reduced to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: make a market of himself. He will give freely, as
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: beseems his royal love. But he that offereth a price
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to him knows not with whom he is dealing, nor
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: how grievously he vexes his free spirit. Empty handed sinners
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: may have with they will. All that they can possibly
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: need is in Jesus, and he gives it for the asking.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: But we must believe that He is all in all,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and we must not dare to breathe a word about
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: completing what he has finished, or fitting ourselves for what
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He gives to us as undeserving sinners. The reason why
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: we may hope for forgiveness of sin and life eternal
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: by faith in the Lord Jesus is that God has
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: so appointed he has pledged himself in the Gospel to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: save all who truly trust in the Lord Jesus, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: he will never run back from his promise. He is
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: so well pleased with his only begotten son that he
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: takes pleasure in all who lay hold upon him as
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: their one and only hope. The Great God himself has
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: taken hold on him who has taken hold on his son.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: He works salvation for all who look for that salvation
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to the once slain Redeemer for the honor of his son.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: He will not suffer the man who try in him
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to be ashamed. He that believeth on the Sun hath
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: everlasting life, for the ever living God has taken him
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: unto himself and has given to him to be a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: partaker of his life. If Jesus only be your trust,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you need not fear but what you shall effectually be saved,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: both now and in the day of his appearing. When
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a man confides there is a point of union between
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: him and God, and that union guarantees blessing. Faith saves
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: us because it makes us cling to Jesus Christ, and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: he is one with God, and thus brings us into
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: connection with God. I am told that years ago, above
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the falls of Niagara, a boat was upset and two
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: men were being carried down by the current. When persons
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: on shore managed to float a rope out to them,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: which rope was seized by them both. One of them
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: held fast to it and was safely drawn to the bank,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: but the seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: let go of the rope and clung to the great
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: piece of timber, for it was the bigger thing of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the two, and apparently better to cling to alas the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: timber with the man on it, went right over the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: vast abyss. Because there was no union between the wood
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and the shore, the size of the log was no
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: benefit to him who grasped it. It needed a connection
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with the shore to produce safety. So when a man
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: trust to his works, or to his prayers or almsgivings,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: or to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: will not be saved because there is no junction between
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: him and God through Christ Jesus. But faith, though it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: may seem to be like a slender cord, is in
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the hand of the great God on the shore side.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Infinite power pulls in the connecting line and thus draws
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith, because
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it unites us to God by the Savior whom he
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: has appointed, even Jesus Christ, Oh reader, is there not
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: common sense in this matter? Think it over, and may
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: there soon be a band of union between you and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: God through your faith in Jesus Christ. End of chapter two,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Chapter three of Around the wicket Gate or a Friendly
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Talk with Seekers concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: by Charles Spurgeon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Read by Marianne Chapter three, Faith in the person of
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus. There is a wretched tendency among men
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to leave Christ himself out of the Gospel. They might
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: as well leave Flower out of bread. Men hear the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: way of salvation explained and consent to it as being
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: scriptural and in every way such as suits their case,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But they forget that a plan is of no service
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: unless it is carried out, and that in the matter
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: of salvation, their own personal faith in the Lord Jesus
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is essential. A road to York will not take me there.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I must travel along it for myself. All the sound
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: doctrine that ever was believed will never save a man
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: unless he puts his trust in the Lord Jesus. For himself,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: mister mac donald asked the inhabitants of the island of
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Saint Kilda how a man must be saved. An old
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: man replied, we shall be saved if we repent and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: forsake our sins and turn to God. Yes, set a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: middle aged female, and with a true heart too. I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: rejoined a third, and with prayer, and added a fourth.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: It must be the prayer of the heart. And we
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: must be diligent, too, said a fifth, in keeping the commandments. Thus,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: each having contributed his might, feeling that a very decent
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: creed had been made up, they all looked and listened
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for the preacher's approbation, But they had aroused his deepest pity.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: He had to begin at the beginning and preach Christ
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to them. The carnal mind always maps out for itself
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: a way in which self can work and become great.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But the Lord's way is quite the reverse. The Lord
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Jesus puts it very compactly in Mark chapter sixteen, verse sixteen.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Believing
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and being baptized are no matters of merit to be
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: gloried in. They are so simple that boasting is excluded,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and free grace bears the palm. This way of salvation
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: is chosen that it might be seen to be of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: grace alone. It may be that the reader is unsaved.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: What is the reason? Do you think the way of
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: salvation as laid down in the text we have quoted,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to be dubious? Do you fear that you would not
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: be saved if you followed it? How can that be?
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: When God has pledged his own word for its certainty?
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: How can that fail? Which God prescribes and concerning which
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: he gives a promise? Do you think it very easy?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Why then do you not attend to it? Its ease
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: leaves those without excuse who neglect it. If you would
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: have done some great thing, be not so foolish as
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to neglect the little thing. To believe is to trust
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: or to lean upon Jesus Christ, in other words, to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: give up self reliance and to rely upon the Lord Jesus.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: To be baptized is to submit to the ordinance which
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience on
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the very night of his conversion. It is the outward confession,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: which should always go with inward faith. The outward sign
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: saves not, but it sets forth to us our death,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: burial and resurrection with Jesus, and like the Lord's Supper,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: is not to be neglected. The great point is to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: believe in Jesus and confess your faith. Do you believe
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: in Jesus, then, dear friend, dismiss your fears. You shall
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: be saved. Are you still an unbeliever, then remember there
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: is but one door, and if you will not enter
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: by it, you must perish in your sins. The door
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is there, but unless you enter by it, what is
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the use of it to you? It is of necessity
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that you obey the command of the Gospel. Nothing can
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: save you if you do not hear the voice of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Jesus and do his bidding. Indeed, and of a truth,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: thinking and resolving will not answer the purpose. You must
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: come to real business, for only as you actually believe
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: will you truly live unto God. I heard of a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: friend who deeply desired to be the means of the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: conversion of a young man, and one said to him,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you may go to him and talk to him, but
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you will get him no further. For he is exceedingly
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: well acquainted with the plan of salvation. It was eminently so.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And therefore, when our friend began to speak with the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: young man, he received for an answer, I am much
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: obliged to you, but I do not know that you
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: can tell me much, For I have long known and
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: admired the plan of salvation by the substitutionary sacrifice of
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Christ Alas he was resting in the plan, but he
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: had not believed in the person. The plan of Salvation
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: is most blessed, but it can avail us nothing unless
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: we personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. What
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: is the comfort of a plan of a house if
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: you do not enter the house itself? The man in
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: our cut, who is sitting out in the rain, is
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: not deriving much comfort from the plans which are spread
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: out before him. What is the good of a plan
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of clothing if you have not a rag to cover
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you have? You never heard of the Arab chief at Cairo,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: who was very ill and went to the missionary, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the missionary said he could give him a prescription. He
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: did so, and a week after he found the Arab
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: none the better. Did you take my prescription? He asked, yes,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I ate every morsel of the paper. He dreamed that
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he was going to be cured by devouring the physician's writing,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: which I may call the plan of the medicine. He
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: should have had the prescription made up, and then it
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: might have wrought him good if he had taken the draft.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It could do him no good to swallow the recipe.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So it is with salvation. It is not the plan
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of salvation which can save. It is the carrying out
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: of that plan by the Lord Jesus in his death
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: on our behalf, and our acceptance of the same. Under
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the Jewish law, the offerer brought a bullock and laid
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: his hands upon it. It was no dream or theory
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: or plan in the victim for sacrifice. He found something
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: substantial which he could handle and touch. Even so do
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: we lean upon the real and true work of Jesus,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the most substantial thing under heaven. We come to the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus by faith and say, God has provided an
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: atonement here, and I accept it. I believe in the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: fact accomplished on the cross. I am confident that sin
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: was put away by Christ, and I rest on him.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: If you would be saved, you must get beyond the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: acceptance of plans and doctrines, to a resting in the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: divine person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Dear reader, will you have Christ? Now? Jesus invites all
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: those who labor and are heavy laden to come to him,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and he will give them rest. He does not promise
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: this to their merely dreaming about him. They must come,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and they must come to Him, and not merely to
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the Church, to baptism, or to the Orthodox faith, or
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: anything short of His divine person. When the brazen serpent
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: was lifted up in the wilderness, the people were not
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: to look to Moses, nor to the tabernacle, nor to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the pillar of the cloud, but to the brazen serpent itself.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Looking was not enough unless they looked to the right object,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And the right object was not enough unless they looked.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It was not enough for them to know about the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: serpent of brass. They must each one look to it
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: for himself. When a man is ill, he may have
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a good knowledge of medicine, and yet he may die
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: if he does not actually take the healing draft. He
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: must receive Jesus, for to as many as received him
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to them, he gave power to become the sons of God.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Lay the emphasis on two words. We must receive him,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and we must receive him. We must open wide the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: door and let Christ Jesus in. For Christ in you
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: is the hope of glory. Christ must be no myth,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: no dream, no phantom to us, but a real man
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and truly God. And our reception of him must be
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: no forced or feigned acceptance, but the hearty and happy
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: assent and consent of the soul. That He shall be
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the all, in all of our salvation. Will we not
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: at once come to him and make him our sole trust.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: The dove is hn by the hawk and finds no
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: security from its restless enemy. It has learnt that there
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: is a shelter for it in the cleft of the rock,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and it hastens there with gladsome wing. Once wholly sheltered
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: within its refuge, it fears no bird of prey. But
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: if it did not hide itself in the rock, it
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: would be seized upon by its adversary. The rock would
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: be of no use to the dove. If the dove
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: did not enter its cleft. The whole body must be
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: hidden in the rock. What if ten thousand other birds
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: found a fortress there. Yet that fact would not save
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the one dove which is now pursued by the hawk.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: It must put its whole self into the shelter and
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: bury itself within its refuge, or its life will be
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: forfeited to the destroyer. What a picture of faith this is.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It is entering into Jesus hiding in his wounds, rock
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: of ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: The dove is out of sight, the rock alone is seen.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So does the guilty soul dart into the riven side
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: of Jesus by faith, and is buried in him, out
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: of sight of avenging justice. But there must be this
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: personal application to Jesus for shelter. And this it is
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that so many put off from day to day till
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: it is to be feared that they will die in
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: their sins. What an awful word is that? It is
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: what our Lord said to the unbelieving Jews, and he
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: says the same to us at this hour. If ye
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: believe not that I am he, ye shall die in
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: your sins. It makes one's heart quiver to think that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: even one who shall read these lines may yet be
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: of the miserable company who will thus perish the Lord
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: prevented of his great grace. I saw the other day
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a remarkable picture, which I shall use as an illustration
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: of the way of salvation by faith in Jesus. An
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: offender had committed a crime for which he must die.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: But it was in the olden time when churches were
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: considered to be sanctuaries in which criminals might hide themselves
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and so escape from death. See the transgressor. He rushes
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: towards the church. The guards pursue him with their drawn swords,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a thirst for his blood, they follow him even to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the church door. He rushes up the steps, and just
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: as they are about to overtake him and hew him
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: in peaces on the threshold of the church, out comes
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the Bishop, and holding up the cross, he cries back back,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: stain not the precincts of God's House with blood. Stand back.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: The fierce soldiers at once respect the emblem and retire,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: while the poor fugitive hides himself behind the robes of
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the bishop. It is even so with Christ. The guilty
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: sinner flies straight away to Jesus, And though justice pursues him,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Christ lifts up his wounded hands, and Christ to justice
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: stand back. I shelter this sinner in the secret place
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of my tabernacle. Do I hide him? I will not
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: suffer him to perish, for he puts his trust in me. Sinner,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: fly to Christ. But you answer, I am too vile.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: The viler you are, the more you will honor him
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: by believing that He is able to protect even you.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: But I am so great a sinner, then the more
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: honor shall be given to him if you have faith
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to confide in him, great sinner though you are. If
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you have a little sickness, and you tell your physician, sir,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I'm quite confident of your skill to heal, there's no
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: great compliment in your declaration. Anybody can cure a finger
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: ache or trifling sickness. But if you are sore sick
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: with a complication of diseases which grievously torment you, and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you say, sir, I seek no better physician, I will
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: ask no other advice but yours. I trust myself joyfully
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: with you. What an honor have you conferred on him?
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: That you can trust your life in his hands while
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it is in extreme and immediate danger. Do the like
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: with Christ? Put your soul into his care? Do it
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: deliberately and without a doubt, dare to quit all other hopes.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Venture all on Jesus. I say, venture, though there is
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: nothing really venturesome in it, for He is abundantly able
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to save. Cast yourself simply on Jesus. Let nothing but
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: faith be in your soul towards Jesus. Believe him and
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: trust in him, and you shall never be made ashamed
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of your confidence. He that believeth on him shall not
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: be confounded. Firse Peter, chapter two, verse six, end of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: chapter three, chapter four of Around the Wicked Gate or
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: a Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning Faith in the Lord
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ by Charles s Burgon this LibriVox recording is
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Marianne Chapter four. Faith
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: very simple, too many. Faith seems a hard thing. The
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: truth is it is only hard because it is easy.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Naymon thought it hard that he should have to wash
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: in Jordan, but if it had been some great thing,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: he would have done it right cheerfully. People think salvation
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: must be the result of some act or feeling very
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: mysterious and very difficult. But God's thoughts are not our thoughts,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: neither are his ways our ways. In order that the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: feeblest and the most ignorant may be saved. He has
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: made the way of salvation as easy as the A. B. C.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: There is nothing about it to puzzle any one, only
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: as everybody expects to be puzzled by it. Many are
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: quite bewildered when they find it to be so exceedingly simple.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: The fact is, we do not believe that God means
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: what he is saying if we act as if it
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: could not be true. I have heard of a Sunday
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: school teacher who performed an experiment which I do not
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: think I shall ever try with children, for it might
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: turn out to be a very expensive one. Indeed, I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: feel sure that the result in my case would be
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: very different from what I now describe. This teacher had
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: been trying to illustrate what faith was, and as he
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: could not get it into the minds of his boys,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: he took his watch and he said, now I will
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: give you this watch, John, Will you have it? John
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: fell to thinking what the teacher could mean, and did
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: not seize the treasure, but made no answer. The teacher
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: said to the next boy, Henry, here is the watch.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Will you have it? The boy, with a very proper modesty,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: replied no, thank you, sir. The teacher tried several of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the boys with the same result, till at last a youngster,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: who was not so wise or so thoughtful as the others,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: but rather more believing, said, in the most natural way,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: thank you, sir, and put the watch into his pocket.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Then the other boys woke up to a startling fact.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Their companion had received a watch which they had refused.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: One of the boys quickly asked of the teacher, is
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: he to keep it? Of course he is, said the teacher.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I offered it to him, and he accepted it. I
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: would not give a thing and take a thing. That
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: would be very foolish. I put the watch before were
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: you and said that I gave it to you. But
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: none of you would have it, Oh, said the boy.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: If I had known you meant it, I would have
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: had it. Of course he would. He thought it was
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: a piece of acting, and nothing more. All the other
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: boys were in a dreadful state of mind to think
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that they had lost the watch. Each one cried teacher,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I did not know you meant it, but I thought
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: no one took the gift, But every one thought. Each
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: one had his theory, except the simple minded boy who
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: believed what he was told and got the watch. Now
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I wish that I could always be such a simple
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: child as literally to believe what the Lord says and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: to take what he puts before me, resting quite content
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that he is not playing with me, and that I
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: cannot be wrong in accepting what he sets before me
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: in the Gospel. Happy should we be if we would
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: trust and raise no questions of any sort, But alas
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: we will get thinking and doubting when the Lord uplifts
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: his dear son before a sinner, That sinner should take
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: him without hesitation. If you take him, you have him,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: and none can take him from you. Out with your
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: hand man, and take him at once. When inquirers accept
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the Bible as literally true and see that Jesus is
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: really given to all who trust him, all the difficulty
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: about understanding the way of salvation vanishes like the morning's frost.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: At the rising of the sun, two inquiring ones came
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to me in my vestry. They had been hearing the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Gospel from me for only a short season, but they
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: had been deeply impressed by it. They expressed their regret
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: that they were about to remove far away, but they
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: added their gratitude that they had heard me at all.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I was cheered by their kind thanks, but felt anxious
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that a more effectual work should be wrought in them.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: And therefore I asked them, have you, in very deed
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you saved? One
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: of them replied, I have been trying hard to believe
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the statement I have often heard, but I will never
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: let it go by me unchallenged. No, I said, that
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: will not do. Did you ever tell your father that
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: you tried to believe him? After I had dwelt a
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: while upon the matter, they admitted that such language would
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: have been an insult to their father. I then set
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the gospel very plainly before them, in as simple language
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: as I could, and I begged them to believe Jesus,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: who is more worthy of faith than the best of fathers.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: One of them replied, I cannot realize it. I cannot
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: realize that I am saved. Then I went on to say,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: God bears testimony to his son that whosoever trusts in
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: his son is saved. Will you make him a liar now?
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Or will you believe his word? While I thus spoke,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: one of them started as if astonished, and she startled
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: us all as she cried, Oh, sir, I see it all.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I am saved. Oh, do bless Jesus for me. He
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: has shown me the way, and he has saved me.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I see it all. The esteemed sister, who had brought
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: these young friends to me, knelt down with them, while
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: with all our hearts we blessed and magnified the Lord
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: for a soul brought into light. One of the two sisters, however,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: could not see the gospel as the other had done,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: though I feel sure she will do so before long.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Did it not seem strange that both, hearing the same words,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: one should come out into the clear light and the
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: other should remain in the gloom. The change which comes
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: over the heart when the understanding grasps the gospel is
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: often reflected in the face and shines there like the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: light of heaven. Such newly enlightened souls often exclaim, why, sir,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: it is so plain? How is it I have not
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: seen it before? This I understand all I have read
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: in the Bible. Now, though I could not make it
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: out before, it has all come in a minute, and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: now I see what I could never understand before. The
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: fact is the truth was always plain. But they were
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: looking for signs and wonders, and therefore did not see
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: what was nigh them. Old men often look for their
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: spectacles when they are on their foreheads, and it is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: commonly observed that we fail to see that which astrait
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: before us. Jesus Christ is before our faces, and we
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: have only to look to him and live. But we
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: make all manner of bewilderment of it, and so manufacture
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: a maze out of that which as plain as a pikestaff.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: The little incident about the two sisters reminds me of another.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: A much esteemed friend came to me one Sabbath morning
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: after service to shake hands with me, For said she,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I was fifty years old on the same day as yourself.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I am like you in that one thing, sir, but
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I am the very reverse of you in better things.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I remarked. Then you must be a very good woman,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: for in many things I wish I also could be
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the reverse of what I am. No, no, she said,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I did not mean anything of that sort. I am
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: not right at all. What I cried, Are you not
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a believer in the Lord Jesus? Well said she with
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: much emotion. I I will try to be I laid
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: hold of her hand and said, my dear soul, you
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: are not going to tell me that you will try
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to believe my Lord Jesus. I cannot have such talk
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: from you. It means blank unbelief. What has he done
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: that you should talk of him in that way? Would
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you tell me that you would try to believe me?
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I know you would not treat me so rudely. You
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: think me a true man, and so you believe me
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: at once, and surely you cannot do less with my
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus. Then, with tears, she exclaimed, Oh, sir, do
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: pray for me to this? I replied, I do not
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: feel that I can do anything of the kind. What
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: can I ask the Lord Jesus to do for one
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: who will not trust him? I see nothing to pray about.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: If you will believe him, you shall be saved. And
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: if you will not believe him, I cannot ask him
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to invent a new way to gratify your unbelief. Then
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: she said again I will try to believe. But I
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: told her solemnly I would have none of her trying,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: for the message from the Lord did not mention trying,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: but said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: shalt be saved. I pressed upon her the great truth
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that he that believeth on him hath everlasting life, and
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: its terrible reverse, he that believeth not is condemned already
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: because he hath not believed in the name of the
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: only begotten Son of God. I urged her to full
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: faith in the once crucified but now ascended Lord and
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit there and then enabled her to trust.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: She most tenderly said, oh, sir, I have been looking
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: to my feelings, and this has been my mistake. Now
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I trust my soul with Jesus, and I am saved.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: She found immediate peace through believing. There is no other way.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: God has been pleased to make the necessities of life
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: very simple matters. We must eat, and even a blind
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: man can find the way to his mouth. We must drink,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and even the tiniest babe knows how to do this
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: without instruction. We have a fountain on the grounds of
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: the Stockwell Orphanage, and when it is running in the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: hot weather, the boys go to it. Naturally, we have
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: no class for fountain drill. Many poor boys have come
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to the orphanage, but never one who is so ignorant
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: that he did not know how to drink. Now, faith
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: is in spiritual things, what eating and drinking are in
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: temporal things. By the mouth of faith, we take the
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: blessings of grace into our spiritual nature, and they are ours. Oh,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you who would believe, but think you cannot. Do you
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: not see that as one can drink without strength, and
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: as one can eat without strength and gets strength by eating,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: so we may receive Jesus without effort, and by accepting
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: him we receive power for all such further effort as
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: we may be called to put forth. Faith is so
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: simple a matter that whenever I try to explain it,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I am very fearful lest I should be cloud as simplicity.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: When Thomas Scott had printed his notes upon the Pilgrim's Progress,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: he asked one of his parishioners whether she understood the book.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, sir, said she. I understand mister Bunyan well enough,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and I am hoping that one day, by divine grace,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I may understand your explanations. Should I not feel mortified
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: if my reader should know what faith is and then
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: get confused by my explanation I will, however, make one
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: trial and pray the Lord to make it clear. I
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: am told that on a certain highland road there was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: a disputed right of way. The owner wished to preserve
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: his supremacy, and at the same time he did not
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: wish to inconvenience the public, hence an arrangement which occasioned
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the following incident. Seeing a sweet country girl standing at
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the gate, a tourist went up to her and offered
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: her a shilling to permit him to pass. No, no,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: said the child. I must not take anything from you,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: but you are to say, please allow me to pass,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and then you may come through and welcome. The permission
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: was to be asked for, but it could be had
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: for the asking. Just so eternal life is free, and
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: it can be had. Yea, it shall be at once
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: had by trusting in the word of him who cannot lie.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Trust Christ, and by that trust you grasp salvation and
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: eternal life. Do not philosophize, Do not sit down and
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: bother your poor brain. Just believe Jesus as you would
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: believe your father. Trust him as you trust your money
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: with a banker or your health with a doctor. Faith
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: will not long seem a difficulty to you, nor ought
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: it to be so, for it is simple. Faith is trusting,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: trusting wholly upon the person, work, merit, and power of
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the son of God. Some think this trusting is a
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: romantic business, but indeed it is the simplest thing that
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: can possibly be to some of us. Truths which were
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: once hard to believe are now matters, a fact which
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: we should find it hard to doubt. If one of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: our great grandfathers were to arise from the dead and
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: come into the present state of things, what a deal
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: of trusting he would have to do. He would say,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: tomorrow morning, where are the flint and steel? I want
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: a light? And we should give him a little box
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: with tiny pieces of wood in it and tell him
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: to strike one of them on the box. He would
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: have to trust a great deal before he would believe
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: that a fire would thus be produced. We should next
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: say to him, now that you have a light, turn
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: that tap and light the gas. He sees nothing. How
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: can light come through an invisible vapor? And yet it
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: does come with us. Grandfather, sit in that chair, look
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: at that box in front of you. You shall have
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: your likeness directly. No child, he would say, it is ridiculous.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: The sun take my portrait. I cannot believe it. Yes,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and you shall ride fifty miles in an hour without horses.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: He will not believe it till we get him into
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the train. My dear sir, you shall speak to your
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: son in New York, and he will answer you in
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a few minutes. Should we not astonish the old gentleman?
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Would he not want all his faith? Yet these things
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: are believed by us without effort, because experience has made
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: us familiar with them. Faith is greatly needed by you,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: who are strangers to spiritual things. You seem lost while
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: we are talking about them. But oh how simple it
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: is to us who have the new life and have
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: communion with spiritual realities. We have a Father to whom
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: we speak and he hears us, and a blessed Savior
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: who hears our heart's longings and helps us in our
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: struggles against sin. It is all plain to him that understandeth.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: May it now be plain to you? End of chapter four,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Around the Wicked Gate or A Friendly
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Talk with Seekers concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: by Charles Spurgeon. This LibriVox recording is in the public
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: domain bad by Mirianne, Chapter five. Fearing to believe. It
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: is an odd product of our unhealthy nature, the fear
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to believe. Yet I have met with it often, so
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: often that I wish I may never see it again.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: It looks like humility and tries to pass itself off
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: as the very soul of modesty, And yet it is
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: an infamously proud thing. In fact, it is presumption playing
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the hypocrite. If men were afraid to disbelieve, there would
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: be good sense in the fear. But to be afraid
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: to trust their God is at best an absurdity, and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: in very deed it is a deceitful way of refusing
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: to the Lord the honor that is due to his
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: faithfulness and truth. How unprofitable is the diligence which busies
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: itself in finding out reasons why faith, in our case
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: should not be saving. We have God's word for it
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: that whosoever believeth in Jesus shall not perish, and we
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: search for arguments why we should perish if we did believe.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: If any one gave me an estate, I certainly should
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: not commence raising questions as to the title, what can
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: be the use of inventing reasons why I should not
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: hold my own house or possess any other piece of
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: property which is enjoyed by me. If the Lord is
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: satisfied to save me through the merits of his dear son, assuredly,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I may be satisfied to be saved if I take
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: God at his word. The responsibility of fulfilling his promise
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: does not lie with me, but with God, who made
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the promise. But you fear that you may not be
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: one of those whom the promise is intended, do not
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: be alarmed by that idle suspicion. No soul ever came
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: to Jesus wrongly. No one can come to him at
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: all unless the Father draw him. And Jesus has said,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: he that cometh to me, I will in no wise
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: cast out no soul ever lays hold on Christ in
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: a way of robbery. He that hath him hath him
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: of right divine. For the Lord's giving of himself for
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: us and to us is so free that every soul
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: that takes him has a grace given right to do so.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: If you lay hold on Jesus by the hem of
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: his garment, without leave and behind him, yet virtue will
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: flow from him to you. As surely as if he
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: had called you out by name and bidden you to
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: trust him. Dismiss all fear when you trust the Savior,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: take him and welcome. He that believes in Jesus is
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: one of God's elect Do you suggest that it would
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: be a horrible thing if you were to trust in
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Jesus and yet perish. It would be so, But as
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: you must perish if you do not trust. The risk
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: at the worst is not very great. I can but
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: perish if I go. I am resolved to try, for
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: if I stay away, I know I must forever die.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Suppose you stand in the sleugh of despond forever, what
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: will be the good of that? Surely it would be
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: better to die struggling along the King's Highway towards the
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: celestial City than sinking deeper and deeper in the mire
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and filth of dark, distrustful thoughts. You have nothing to lose,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: for you have lost everything already. Therefore make a dash
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: for it, and dare to believe in the mercy of God.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: To you, even to you, but one moans, what if
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: I come to Christ and he refuses me? My answer
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: is try him. Cast yourself on the Lord Jesus, and
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: see if he refuses you, you will be the first
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: against whom he has shut the door of hope. Friend,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: don't cross that bridge till you come to it. When
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Jesus casts you out, it will be time enough to despair.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: But that time will never come. This man receiveth sinners,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: he is not so much as begun to cast them out.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Have you never heard of the man who lost his
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: way one night and came to the edge of a
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: precipice as he thought, and in his own apprehension, fell
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: over the cliff. He clutched at an old tree, and
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: there hung, clinging to his frail support with all his might.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: He felt persuaded that should he quit his hold, he
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: would be dashed to pieces on some awful rocks that
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: waited for him down below. There he hung, with a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: sweat upon his brow and anguish in every limb. He
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: passed into a desperate state of fever and faintness, and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: at last his hands could hold up his body. No
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: longer he relaxed his grasp, he dropped from his support.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: He fell about a foot or so, and was received
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: upon a soft mossy bank, whereon he lay altogether unhurt
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: and perfectly safe till morning. Thus, in the darkness of
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: their ignorance, many think that sure destruction awaits them if
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: they confess their sin, quit all hope in self, and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: resign themselves to the hands of God. They are afraid
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: to quit the hope to which they ignorantly cling. It
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: is an idle fear. Give up your hold on everything
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: but Christ, and drop drop from all trust in your works,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: or prayers or feelings. Drop it once, drop, now, soft
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and safe, shall be the bank that receives you. Jesus Christ,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: in his love, in the efficacy of his precious blood,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: in his perfect righteousness, will give you immediate rest and peace.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Cease from self confidence, fall into the arms of Jesus.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: This is the major part of faith, giving up every
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: other hold and simply falling upon Christ. There is no
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: reason for fear. Only ignorance causes your dread of that
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: which will be your eternal safety. The death of carnal
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: hope is the life of faith, and the life of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: faith is life everlasting. Let self die that Christ may
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: live in you. But the mischief is that to the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: one act of faith in Jesus we cannot bring men.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: They will adopt any expedient sooner than have done with self.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: They fight shy of believing, and fear faith as if
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: it were a monster. O foolish tremblers, who has bewitched you?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: You fear that which would be the death of all
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: your fear and the beginning of your joy? Why will
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you perish through perversely preferring other ways to God's own
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: appointed plan of salvation? Alas, there are many many souls
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: that say, we are bidden to trust in Jesus. But
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: instead of that we attend the means of grace regularly,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: attend public worship by all means, but not as a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: substitute for faith, or it will become a vain confidence.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: The command is believe and live. Attend to that. Whatever
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: else you do, well, I shall take to reading good books.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Perhaps I shall get good that way, read the good
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: books by all means. But that is not the gospel.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: The gospel is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: thou shalt be saved. Suppose a physician has a patient
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: under his care, and he says to him, you are
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to take a bath in the morning. It will be
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a very great service to your disease. But the man
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: takes a cup of tea in the morning instead of
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: the bath, and says that will do as well. I
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: have no doubt. What does his physician say when he inquires,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: did you follow my rule? No? I did not. Then
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: you do not expect, of course, that there will be
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: any good result from my visits, since you take no
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: notice of my directions. So we practically say to Jesus Christ,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: when we are under searching of soul, Lord, thou badest
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: me trust THEE, but I would sooner do something else. Lord.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I want to have horrible convictions. I want to be
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: shaken over Hell's mouth. I want to be alarmed and distressed. Yes,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: you want anything, but what Christ prescribes for you, which
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: is that you should simply trust him, whether you feel
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: or do not feel, cast yourself on him, that he
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: may save you and he alone. But you do not
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: mean to say that you speak against praying and reading
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: good books and so on. Not one single word do
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I speak against any of those things any more than
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: if I were the physician I quoted, I should speak
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: against the man's drinking a cup of tea. Let him
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: drink his tea, but not if he drinks it instead
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: of taking the bath which is prescribed for him. So
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: let the man pray. The more the better. Let the
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: man search the scriptures. But remember that if these things
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: are put in the place of simple faith in Christ,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: the soul will be ruined. Beware lest it be said
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: of any of you by our Lord, ye search the scriptures,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: for in them ye think ye have eternal life. But
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: ye will not come unto me. That ye may have life.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Come by faith to Jesus, for without him you perish forever.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Did you ever notice how a fir tree will get
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: a hold among rocks which seem to afford it no soil.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: It sends a rootlet into any crack which opens. It
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: clutches even the bare rock, as with a huge bird's claw.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: It holds fast and binds itself to earth with a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: hundred anchorages. Our little drawing is very accurate. We have
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: often seen trees thus firmly rooted upon detached masses of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: bare rock. Now, dear heart, let this be a picture
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: of yourself. Grip the rock of Ages with the Rootlet
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: of little faith hold to him. Let that tiny feeler grow,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: and meanwhile send out another to take a new grasp
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: of the same rock. Lay hold on Jesus, and keep
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: hold on Jesus. Grow up to him, Twist the roots
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of your nature, the fibers of your heart about him.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: He is as free to you as the rocks are
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: to the fir tree. Be you as firmly lashed to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: him as the pine is to the mountain's side. End
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: of chapter five, Chapter six of Around the wicket Gate
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: or A Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning Faith in the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Burgon this LibriVox recording is
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Marianne, Chapter six, Difficulty
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: in the way of believing. It may be that the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: reader feels a difficulty in believing. Let him consider we
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: cannot believe by an immediate act. The state of mind
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: which we describe as believing is a result following upon
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: certain former states of mind. We come to faith by degrees.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: There may be such a thing as faith at first sight,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: but usually we reach faith by stages. We become interested,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: we consider, we hear evidence, We are convinced and so
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: led to believe. If then I wish to believe, but
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: for some reason or other find that I cannot attain
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: to faith, what shall I do? Shall I stand like
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: a cow staring at a new gate. Or shall I,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: like an intelligent being, use the proper means. If I
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: wish to believe anything, what shall I do? We will
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: answer according to the rules of common sense. If I
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: were told that the Sultan of Zanzibar was a good man,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and it happened to be a matter of interest to me,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I do not suppose I should feel any difficulty in
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: believing it. But if for some reason I had a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: out about it, and yet wish to believe the news,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: how should I act? Should I not hunt up all
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: the information within my reach about his majesty and try
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: by study of the newspapers and other documents to arrive
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: at the truth. Better still, if he happened to be
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: in this country and would see me, and I could
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: also converse with members of his court and citizens of
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: his country, I should be greatly helped to arrive at
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: a decision by using these sources of information. Evidence weighed
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and knowledge obtained lead up to faith. It is true
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: that faith in Jesus is the gift of God, but
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: yet he usually bestows it in accordance with the laws
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: of mind. And hence we are told that faith cometh
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: you want to believe in Jesus, hear about him, read
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: about him, think about him, know about him, and so
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you will find faith springing up in your heart, like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: the wheat which comes up through the moisture and the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: heat operating upon the seed which has been sown. If
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I wished to have faith in a certain physician, I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: should ask for testimonials of his cures. I should wish
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: to see the diplomas which certified to his professional knowledge.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: And I should also like to hear what he has
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: to say upon certain complicated cases. In fact, I should
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: take means to know in order that I might believe
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: be much in hearing concerning Jesus. Souls by hundreds come
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: to faith in Jesus under a ministry which sets him
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: forth clearly and constantly. Few remain unbelieving under a preacher
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: whose great subject is Christ crucified. Hear no minister of
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: any other sort there are such. I have heard of
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: one who found in his pulpit Bible a paper bearing
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: this text, Sir, we would see Jesus. Go to the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: place of worship to see Jesus. And if you cannot
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: even hear the mention of his name, take yourself off
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: to another place where He is more thought of and
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: is therefore more likely to be present. Be much in
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: reading about the Lord Jesus. The books of Scripture are
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: the lilies among which he feedeth. The Bible is the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: window through which we may look and see our Lord.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Read over the story of his sufferings and death with
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: devout attention, and before long the Lord will cause faith
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: secretly to enter your soul. The Cross of Christ not
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: only rewards faith, but begets faith. Many a believer can say,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: when I view thee wounded, grieving, breathless on the cursed tree,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: soon I feel my heart believing thou hast suffered thus
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: for me. If hearing and reading suffice not, then deliberately
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: set your mind to work to overhaul the matter and
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: have it out. Either believe or know the reason why
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: you do not believe. See the matter through to the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: utmost of your ability, and pray God to help you
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: make a thorough investigation and to come to an honest
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: decision one way or the other. Consider who Jesus was,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and whether the constitution of his person does not entitle
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: him to confidence. Consider what he did and whether this
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: also must not be good ground for trust. Consider him
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: as dying, rising from the dead, ascending, and ever living,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: to intercede for transgressors, and see whether this does not
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: entitle him to be relied upon by you. Then cry
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: to him, and see if he does not hear you.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: When Usher wished to know whether Rutherford was indeed as
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: holy a man as he was said to be, he
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: went to his house as a beggar and gained a lodging,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: and heard the man of God pouring out his heart
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: before the Lord in the night. If you would know Jesus,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: get as near to him as you can by studying
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: his character and appealing to his love. At one time
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: I might have needed evidence to make me believe in
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus. But now I know him so well
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: by proving him that I should need a very great
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: deal of evidence to make me doubt him. It is
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: now more natural to me to trust than to disbelieve.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: This is the new nature triumphing. It was not so
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: at the first. The novelty of faith is in the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: beginning a source of weakness. But act after act of
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: trusting turns faith into a habit. Experience brings to faith,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: strong confirmation. I am not perplexed with doubt, because the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: truth which I believe, has wrought a miracle on me.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: By its means, I have received, and still retain a
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: new life to which I was once a stranger. And
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: this is confirmation of the strongest sort. I am like
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: the good man and his wife, who had kept a
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: lighthouse for years. A visitor who came to see the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: lighthouse looking out from the window over the waste of waters,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: asked the good woman, are you not afraid at night,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: when the storm is out and the big waves dash
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: right over the lantern? Do you not fear that the
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: lighthouse and all that is in it will be carried away?
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: I am sure I should be afraid to trust myself
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: in a slender tower in the midst of the great billows.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: The woman remarked that the idea had never occurred to her.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Now she had lived there so long that she felt
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: as safe on the lone rock as ever she did
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: when she lived on the mainland. As for her husband,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: when asked if he did not feel anxious when the
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: wind blew a hurricane, he answered, yes, I feel anxious
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: to keep the lamps well trimmed and the light burning,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: lest any vessel should be wrecked as to anxiety about
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: the safety of the lighthouse or his own personal secure
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: curity in it, he had outlived all that. Even so
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: it is with the full grown believer he can humbly say,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: he is able to keep that which I have committed
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: unto him against that day. From henceforth, let no man
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: trouble me with doubts and questionings. I bear in my
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and power, and
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: I will have none of your artful reasonings. The Gospel
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: to me is truth. I am content to perish if
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: it is not true. I risk my soul's eternal fate
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: upon the truth of the Gospel, and I know that
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: there is no risk in it. My one concern is
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit others.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Only Let the Lord give me oil enough to feed
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: my lamp, so that I may cast a ray across
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the dark and treacherous sea of life. And I am
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: well content now, troubled seeker. If it be so that
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: your minister and many others in whom you can find,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: have found perfect peace and rest in the Gospel. Why
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: should not you is the spirit of the Lord Straton,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: do not his words? Do good to them that walk uprightly?
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Will not you also try their saving virtue? Most true
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: is the Gospel, for God is its author. Believe it.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Most able is the Savior, for he is the Son
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: of God. Trust him. Most powerful is his precious blood.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Look to it for pardon. Most loving is his gracious heart.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: Run to it at once. Thus would I urge the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: reader to seek faith. But if he be unwilling, what
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: more can I do. I have brought the horse to
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: the water, but I cannot make him drink this. However,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: be it remembered. Unbelief is wilful when evidence is put
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: in a man's way and he refuses carefully to examine it.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: He that does not desire to know and accept the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: truth has himself to thank if he dies with a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: lie in his right hand. It is true that he
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. It is
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: equally true that he that believeth not shall be damned.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter six Chapter seven of Around the Wicket
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: Gate or A Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning faith in
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Burton. This LibriVox recording
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Marianne, Chapter seven,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: a helpful survey of Christ's work. You help the seeker
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: to a true faith in Jesus. I would remind him
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: of the work of the Lord Jesus in the room
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: and place and stead of sinners, when we were yet
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: without strength. In due time, Christ died for the ungodly
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Romans chapter five, verse six, who his own self bore
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: our sins in his own body on the tree. First Peter,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: chapter two, verse twenty four. The Lord hath laid on
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: him the iniquity of us all Isaiah chapter fifty three,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: verse six. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: the just for the unjust, that he might bring us
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: to God. First Peter, chapter three, verse eighteen. Upon one
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: declaration of scripture, let the reader fix his eye with
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: his stripes. We are healed. Isaiah chapter fifty three, verse five.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: God here treats sin as a disease, and he sets
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: before us the costly remedy which he has provided. I
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: for a few minutes while I bring before you the
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: stripes of the Lord Jesus. The Lord resolved to restore us,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and therefore he sent his only begotten son, Very God,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: of very God, that he might descend into this world
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: to take upon himself our nature in order to our redemption.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: He lived as a man among men, and in due time,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: after thirty years or more of obedience, the time came
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: when he should do us the greatest service of all, namely,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: stand in our stead and bear the chastisement of our peace.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: He went to Gassemone, and there, at the first taste
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: of our bitter cup, he sweat great drop of blood.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: He went to Pilot's Hall and Herod's judgment seat, and
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: there drank drafts of pain and scorn in our room
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: and place. Last of all, they took him to the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: cross and nailed him there to die, To die in
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: our stead. The word stripes is used to set forth
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: his sufferings, both of body and soul. The whole of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Christ was made a sacrifice for us. His whole manhood suffered.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: As to his body, it shared with his mind in
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: a grief that can never be described. In the beginning
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: of his passion, when he emphatically suffered instead of us.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: He was in agony, and from his bodily frame a
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the ground.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: It is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: have been one or two instances of it, and they
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: have been followed by almost immediate death. But our Savior lived,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: lived after an agony which to any one else would
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: have proved fatal. Ere he could cleanse his face from
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: this dreadful crimson. They hurried him to the High Priest's
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: hall in the dead of night. They bound him and
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: led him away Anon. They took him to Pilot and
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: to Herod. These scourged him, and their soldiers spat in
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: his face, and buffeted him, and put on his head
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: a crown of thorns. Scourging is one of the most
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: awful tortures that can be inflicted by malice. It was
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: formerly the disgrace of the British army, and the cat
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: was used upon a soldier a brutal infliction of torture.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: But to the Roman, cruelty was so natural that he
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: made his common punishments worse than brutal. The Roman scourge
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: is said to have been made of the sinews of
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: oxen twisted into knots, and into those knots were inserted
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: slivers of bone and huckle bones of sheep, so that
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: every time the scourge fell upon the bare back, the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: plowers made deep furrows. Our Savior was called upon to
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: endure the fierce pain of the Roman scourge, and this
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: not as the thinness of his punishment, but as a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: preface to crucifixion. To this his persecutors added buffeting and
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: plucking of the hair. They spared him no form of
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: pain in all his faintness. Through bleeding and fasting. They
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: made him carry his cross until another was forced, by
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: the forethought of their cruelty, to bear it, lest their
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: victim should die on the road. They stripped him and
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: threw him down, and nailed him to the wood. They
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: pierced his hands and his feet. They lifted up the
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: tree with him upon it, and then dashed it down
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: into its place in the ground, so that all his
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: limbs were dislocated. According to the lament of the twenty
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: six second psalm, I am poured out like water, and
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: all my bones are out of joint. He hung in
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: the burning sun till the fever dissolved his strength, and
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: he said, my heart is like wax. It is melted
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: up like a poshurd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: And thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: There he hung a spectacle to God and men. The
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: weight of his body was first sustained by his feet
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: till the nails tore through the tender nerves. And then
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the painful load began to drag upon his hands and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: rend those sensitive parts of his frame. How small a
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: wound in the hand has brought on lockjaw. How awful
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: must have been the torment caused by that dragging iron
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: tearing through the delicate parts of the hands and feet.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Now were all manner of bodily pains centered in his
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: tortured frame. All the while his enemies stood around, pointing
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: at him in scorn, thrusting out their tongues in mockery,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: jesting at his prayers, and gloating over his sufferings. He cried,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: I thirst, And then they gave him vinegar mixed with
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: gall After a while he said it is finished. He
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: had endured the utmost of appointed grief, and had made
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: full vindication to divine justice then and not till then
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: he gave up the ghost. Holy men of old have
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: enlarged most lovingly upon the bodily sufferings of our Lord,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: and I have no hesitation in doing the same, trusting
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: that trembling sinners may see salvation in these painful stripes
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: of the Redeemer. To describe the outward sufferings of our
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Lord is not easy. I acknowledge that I have failed.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: But his soul sufferings, which were the soul of his sufferings.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Who can even conceive, much less express what they were?
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: At the very first I told you that he swept
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: great drops of blood that was his heart, driving out
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: its life floods to the surface. Through the terrible depression
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: of spirit which was upon him. He said, my soul
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. The betrayal by Judas
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: and the desertion of the twelve grieved our Lord. But
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: the weight of our sin was the real pressure on
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: his heart. Our guilt was the olive press which forced
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: from him the moisture of his life. No language can
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: ever tell his agony in prospect of his passion. How
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: little then can we conceive the passion itself. When nailed
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: to the cross, he endured what no martyr ever suffered.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: For martyrs, when they have died, have been so sustained
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: of God that they have rejoiced amid their pain. But
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: our redeemer was forsaken of his father, until he cried,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? That
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: was the bitterest cry of all, the utmost depth of
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: his unfathomable grief. Yet it was needful that he should
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: be deserted, because God must turn his back on sin,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: and consequently upon him who was made sin for us.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: The soul of the Great substitute suffered a horror of
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: misery instead of that horror of hell into which sinners
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: would have been plunged had he not taken their sin
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: upon himself and been made a curse for them. It
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: But who knows what that curse means. The remedy for
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: your sins and mine is found in the substitutionary sufferings
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: of the Lord Jesus, And in these only these stripes
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: of the Lord Jesus were on our behalf. Do you inquire,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: is there anything for us to do to remove the
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: guilt of sin? I answer, there is nothing whatever for
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: you to do. By the stripes of Jesus, we are healed,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: all those stripes He has endured and left not one
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: of them for us to bear. But must we not
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: believe on him? I certainly, if I say of a
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: certain ointment that it heals, I do not deny that
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: you need a bandage with which to apply it to
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: the wound. Faith is the linen which binds the plaster
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: of Christ's reconciliation to the sore of our sin. The
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: linen does not heal, that is the work of the ointment.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: So faith does not heal, that is the work of
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: the atonement of Christ. But we must repent, cries another.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: Assuredly we must and shall, for repentance is the first
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: sign of healing. But the stripes of Jesus heal us,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: and not our repentance. These stripes, when applied to the heart,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: work repentance in us. We hate sin because it made
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: Jesus suffer. When you intelligently trust in Jesus as having
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: suffered for you, then you discover the fact that God
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: will never punish you for the same offense for which
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Jesus died. His justice will not permit him to see
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: the debt paid first by the surety and then again
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: by the debtor. Justice cannot twice demand a recompense. If
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: my bleeding surety has borne my guilt, then I cannot
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: bear it. Accepting Christ Jesus as suffering for me, I
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: have accepted a complete discharge for judicial liability. I have
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: been condemned in Christ, and there is therefore now no
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: condemnation to me any more. This is the groundwork of
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: the security of the sinner who believes in Jesus. He
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: lives because Jesus died in his room and place and stead,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: and he is acceptable before God. Because Jesus is accepted.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: The person for whom Jesus is an accepted substitute must
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: go free. No one can touch him. He is clear.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: O my hear, wilt thou have Jesus Christ to be
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: thy substitute? If so thou art free, he that believeth
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: on him is not condemned. Thus with his stripes we
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: are healed. End of chapter seven Chapter eight of Around
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: the Wicked Gate, or A Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Spurgeon. This
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Marianne,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight. A real hindrance to faith. Although it is
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: by no means a difficult thing in itself to believe
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: him who cannot lie, and to trust in one whom
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: we know to be able to save. Yet something may
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: intervene which may render even this a hard thing to
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: my reader. That hindrance may be a secret, and yet
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: it may be none the less real. A door may
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: be closed not by a great stone which all can see,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: but by an invisible bolt which shoots into a hold
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: fast quite out of sight. A man may have good eyes,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: and yet may not be able to see an object
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: because another substance comes in the way. You could not
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: even see the sun if a handkerchief or a mere
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: piece of rag were tied over your face. Oh, the
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: bandages which men persist in binding over their own eyes.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: A sweet sin harbored in the heart will prevent a
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: soul from laying hold upon Christ. By faith, the Lord
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: has come to save us from sinning. And if we
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: are resolved to go on sinning, Christ and our souls
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: will never agree. If a man takes poison and a
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: doctor is called in to save his life, he may
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: have a sure antidote ready, But if the patient persists
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: in keeping the poison bottle at his lips and will
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: continue to swallow the deadly drops, how can this doctor
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: save him. Salvation consists largely imparting the sinner from his sin,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: and the very nature of salvation would have to be
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: changed before we could speak of a man's being saved
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: when he is loving sin and wilfully living in it.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: A man cannot be made white and yet continue black.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: He cannot be he and yet remains sick. Neither can
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: any one be saved and be still a lover of evil.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: A drunkard will be saved by believing in Christ. That
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: is to say, he will be saved from being a drunkard.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: But if he determined still to make himself intoxicated, he
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: is not saved from it, and has not truly believed
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: in Jesus. A liar can by faith be saved from falsehood,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: but then he leaves off lying and is careful to
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: speak the truth. Any One can see with half an
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: eye that he cannot be saved from being a liar
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: and yet go on in his old style of deceit
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: and untruthfulness. A person who has at enmity with another
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: will be saved from that feeling of enmity by believing
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: in the Lord Jesus. But if he vows that he
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: will still cherish the feeling of hate, it is clear
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: that he is not saved from it, and equally clear
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: that he has not believed in the Lord Jesus. Unto salvation,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: the great matter is to be delivered from the love
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: of sin. This is the sure effect of trust in
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: the Savior. But if this effect is so far from
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: being desired that it is even refused, all talk of
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: trusting in the Savior for salvation is an idle tale.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: A man goes to the shipping office and asks if
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: he can be taken to America. He is assured that
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: a ship is just ready, that he has only to
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: go on board and he will soon reach New York.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: But he says, I want to stop at home in
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: England and mind my shop all the time I am
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: crossing the Atlantic. The agent thinks he is talking to
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: a madman and tells him to go about his business
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: and not waste his time by playing the fool to
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: pretend to trust Christ to save you from sin while
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: you are still determined to continue in it is making
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: a mock of Christ. I pray my reader not to
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: be guilty of such profanity. Let him not dream that
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: the Holy Jesus will be the patron of iniquity. Do
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: you see the tree in my picture? The ivy has
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: grown all over it and is strangling it, sucking out
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: its life and killing it. Can that tree be saved?
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: The gardener thinks it can be. He is willing to
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: do his best, But before he begins to use his
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: axe and his knife, he is told that he must
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: not cut away the ivy. Ah. Then he says, it
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: is impossible. It is the ivy which is killing the tree.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: And if you want the tree to be saved, you
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: cannot save the ivy. If you trust me to preserve
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: the tree, you must let me get the deadly climber
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: away from it. Is not that common sense, certainly it is.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: You do not trust the tree to the gardener unless
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: you trust him to cut away that which is deadly
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: to it. If the sinner will keep his sin, he
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: must die in it. If he is willing to be rescued,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: from his sin. The Lord Jesus is able to do it,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: and will do it if he commits his case to
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: his care. What then, is your darling sin? Is it
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: any gross wrongdoing? Then very shame should make you cease
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: from it. Is it love of the world, or fear
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: of men, or longing for evil gains? Surely none of
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: these things should reconcile you to living in enmity with
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: God and beneath his frown. Is it a human love
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: which is eating like a canker into the heart. Can
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: any creature rival the Lord Jesus? Is it not idolatry
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: to allow any earthly thing to compare for one instant
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: with the Lord God? Well saith one. For me to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: give up the particular sin by which I am held
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: captive would be to my serious injury in business, would
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: ruin my prospects and lessen my usefulness in many ways.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: If it be so, you have your case met by
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: the words of the Lord Jesus, who bids you to
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: pluck out your eye and cut off your hand or
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: foot and cast it from you, rather than be cast
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: into hell. It is better to enter into life with
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: one eye, with the poorest prospects than to keep all
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: your hopes and be out of Christ. Better to be
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: a lame believer than a leaping sinner. Better to be
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: in the rear rank for life in the army of Christ,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: than lead the van and be a chief officer under
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: the command of Satan. If you win Christ, it will
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: little matter what you lose. No doubt, many have had
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: to suffer that which has maimed and lamed them for
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: this life. But if they have entered thereby into eternal life,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: they have been great gainers. It comes to this, my friend,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: as it did with John Bunyan. A voice now speaks
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: to you and says, wilt thou keep thy sin and
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: go to Hell? Or leave thine I sin and go
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: to Heaven. The point should be decided before you quit
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: the spot. In the name of God. I ask you
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: which shall it be? Christ and salvation were the favorite
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: sin and damnation. There is no middle course. Waiting or
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: refusing to decide will practically be a sure decision for
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: the evil one. He that stands questioning whether he will
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: be honest or not is already out of the straight line.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: He that does not know whether he wishes to be
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: cleansed from sin gives evidence of a foul heart. If
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: you are anxious to give up every evil way, our
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus will enable you to do so at once.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: His grace has already changed the direction of your desires.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: In fact, your heart is renewed. Therefore, rest on him
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: to strengthen you to battle with temptations as they arise,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: and to fulfill the Lord's commands from day to day.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: The Lord Jesus is great at making the lame man
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: to leap like a heart, and in enabling those who
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: are sick of the palsy to take up their bed
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: and walk. He will make you able to conquer the
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: evil habit. He will even cast the devil out of you. Yes,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: if you have seven devils, he could drive them out
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: at once. There is no limit to his power to
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: cleanse and sanctify. Now that you are willing to be
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: made whole, the great difficulty is removed. He that has
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: set the will right can arrange all your other powers
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and make them move to his praise. You would not
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: have earnestly desired to quit all sin if he had
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: not secretly inclined you in that direction. If you now
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: trust him, it will be clear that he has begun
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: a good work in you, and we feel assured that
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: he will carry it on. End of chapter eight. Chapter
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: nine of Around the wicket Gate or a Friendly Talk
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: with Seekers concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: Charles Spurgeon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: Read by Marianne, Chapter nine on raising questions in these days,
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: a simple childlike faith is very rare. But the usual
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: thing is to believe nothing and question everything. Doubts are
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: as plentiful as blackberries, and all hands and lips are
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: stained with them. To me, it seems very strange that
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: men should hunt up difficulties as to their own salvation.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: If I were doomed to die, and I had a
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: hint of mercy, I am sure I would not set
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: my wits to work to find out reasons why I
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: should not be part of I could leave my enemies
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: to do that. I should be on the lookout in
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: a very different direction. If I were drowning, I should
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: sooner catch at a straw than push a life boat
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: away from me. To reason against one's own life is
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: a sort of constructive suicide of which only a drunken
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: man would be guilty to argue against your only hope
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: is like a foolish man sitting on a bough and
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: chopping it away so as to let himself down. Who
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: but an idiot would do that. Yet many appear to
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: be special pleaders for their own ruin. They hunt the
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: Bible through for threatening texts, and when they have done
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: with that, they turn to reason and philosophy and skepticism
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: in order to shut the door in their own faces.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Surely this is poor employment for a sensible man. Many
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: now a days, who cannot quite get away from religious thought,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: are able to stave off the inconvenient pressure of conscience
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: by quibbling over the great truths of revelation. Great mysteries
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: are in the book of God of necessity. For how
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: can the infinite God so speak that all his thoughts
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: can be grasped by finite man. But it is the
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: height of folly to get discussing these deep things and
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: to leave plain, soul saving truths in abeyance. It reminds
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: one of the two philosophers who debated about food and
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: went away empty from the table, while the common countrymen
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: in the corner asked no question, but used his knife
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: and fork with great diligence and went on his way rejoicing.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: Thousands are now happy in the Lord through receiving the
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: Gospel like little children, while others, who can always see
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: difficulties or invent them, are as far off as ever
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: from any comfortable hope of salvation. I know many very
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: decent people who seem to have resolved never to come
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: to Christ till they can understand how the doctrine of
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: election is consistent with the free invitations of the Gospel.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: I might just as well determine never to eat a
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: morsel of bread till it has been explained to me
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: how it is that God keeps me alive, and yet
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: I must eat to live. The fact is that we,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: most of us know quite enough already, and the real
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: want with us is not light in the head, but
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: truth in the heart. Not help over difficulties, but grace
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: to make us hate sin and seek reconciliation. Here let
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: me add a warning against tampering with the word of God.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: No habit can be more ruinous to the soul. It
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: is cool, contemptuous impertinence to sit down and correct your maker,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: and it tends to make the heart harder than the
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: nether millstone. We remember one who used a knife on
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: his Bible, and it was not long before he had
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: given up all his former beliefs. The spirit of reverence
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: is healthy, but the impertinence of criticizing the inspired word
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: is destructive of all proper feeling towards God. If ever,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: a man does feel his need of a savior after
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: treating scripture with a proud, critical spirit, he is very
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: apt to find his conscience standing in the way and
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: hindering him from comfort by reminding him of ill treatment
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: of the sacred word. It comes hard to him to
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: draw consolation out of passages of the Bible which he
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: has treated cavalierly, or even set aside altogether as unworthy
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: of consideration. In his distress. The sacred texts seem to
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: laugh at his calamity. When the time of need comes,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: the wells which he stopped with stones yield no water
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: for his thirst. Beware when you despise a scripture, lest
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: you cast away the only friend that can help you
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: in the hour of agony. A certain German duke was
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: accustomed to call upon his servant to read a chapter
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: of the Bible to him every morning when anything did
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: not square with his judgment, He would sternly cry, Hans,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: strike that out at length. Hans was a long time
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: before he began to read. He fumbled over the book
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: till his master called out, Hans, why do you not read?
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: Then Hans answered, sir, there is hardly anything left. It
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: is all struck out. One day his master's objections had
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: run one way, and another day they had taken another turn,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: and another set of passages had been blotted, till nothing
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: was left to instruct or comfort him. Let us not,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: by carping criticism, destroy our own mercies. We may yet
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: need those promises which appear needless, and those portions of
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: holy writ which have been most assailed by skeptics, may
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: yet prove essential to our very life. Wherefore, let us
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: guard the priceless treasure of the Bible, and determine never
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: to resign a single line of it. What have we
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: to do with recondite questions while our souls are in peril?
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: The way to escape from sin is plain enough, the
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: wayfaring man, though a fool shall not err therein. God
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: has not mocked us with salvation which we cannot understand, believe,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: and live. Is a command which a babe may comprehend
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: and obey doubt no more, but now believe, question not,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: but just receive artful doubts. The reasonings be nailed with
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: Jesus to the tree instead of caviling. At scripture, the
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: man who is led of the spirit of God will
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: close in with the Lord Jesus at once, Seeing that
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: thousands of decent, common sense people, people too, of the
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: best character, are trusting there all with Jesus, he will
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: do the same, and have done with further delays. Then
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: has he begun a life with living, and he may
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: have done with further fear. He may at once advance
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: to that higher and better way of living which grows
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: out of love to Jesus the Savior. Why should not
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: the reader do so at once? Oh? That he would?
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: A Newark, New Jersey Butcher received a letter from his
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: old home in Germany notifying that he had, by the
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: death of a relative, fallen heir to a considerable amount
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: of money. He was cutting up a pig at that time.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: After reading the letter, he hastily tore off his dirty
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: apron and did not stop to see the pork cut
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: up into sausages, but left the shop to make preparations
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: for going home to Germany. Do you blame him or
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: would you have had him stop in Newark with his
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: block and his cleaver. See here the operation of faith.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: The butcher believed what was told him and acted on
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: it at once. Sensible fellow too, God has sent his
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: messages to man, telling him the good news of salvation.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: When a man believes the good news to be true,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: he accepts the blessing announced to him and hastens to
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: lay hold upon it. If he truly believes, he will
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: at once take Christ with all he has to bestow,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: turn from his present evil ways, and set out for
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the heavenly city, where the full blessing is to be enjoyed.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: He cannot be wholly too soon or too early quit
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: the ways of sin. If a man could really see
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: what sin is, he would flee from it as from
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: a deadly serpent, and rejoice to be freed from it
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: by Jesus Christ, end of chapter nine. Chapter ten of
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: Around the Wicket Gate or A Friendly Talk with Seekers
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Spurgeon.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Mirianne.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, Without Faith, No Salvation, Some think it hard
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: that there should be nothing for them but ruin if
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: they will not believe in Jesus Christ. But if you
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: will think for a minute, you will see that it
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: is just and reasonable. I suppose there is no way
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: for a man to keep his strength up except by eating.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: If you were to say I will not eat again,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: I despise such animalism. You might go to Madeira, or
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: travel in all lands, supposing you lived long enough, but
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: you would most certainly find that no climate and no
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: exercise would avail to keep you alive if you refused food.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: Would you then complain it is a hard thing that
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: I should die because I do not believe in eating.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: It is not an unjust thing that if you are
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: so foolish as not to eat, you must die. It
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: is precisely so with believing believe, and thou art saved.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: If thou wilt not believe, it is no hard thing
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: that thou shouldst be lost. It would be strange, indeed,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: if it were not to be the case. A man
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: who is thirsty stands before a fountain. No, he says,
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: I will never touch a drop of moisture as long
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: as I live, Cannot I get my thirst? Quenched in
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: my own way. We tell him, no, he must drink
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: or die. He says, I will never drink, but it
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: is a hard thing that I must therefore die. It
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: is a bigoted, cruel thing to tell me so. He
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: is wrong. His thirst is the inevitable result of neglecting
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: a law of nature. You too must believe or die.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: Why refuse to obey the command? Drink? Man, drink, Take
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: Christ and live. There is the way of salvation, and
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: to enter you must trust Christ. But there is nothing
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: hard in the fact that you must perish if you
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: would not trust the Savior. Here is a man out
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: at sea. He has a chart, and that chart, if
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: well studied, will, with the help of the compass, guide
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: him to his journey's end. The pole star gleams out
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: amidst the cloud rifts, and that too will help him. No,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: he says, I will have nothing to do with your stars.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: I do not believe in the north pole. I shall
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: not attend to that little thing inside the box. One
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: needle is as good as another needle. I have no
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: faith in your chart, and I will have nothing to
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: do with it. The art of navigation is only a
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: lot of nonsense. Got up by people on purpose to
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: make money, and I will not be gulled by it.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: The man never reaches port, and he says, it is
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: a very hard thing, a very hard thing. I do
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: not think so. Some of you say, I am not
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: going to read the scriptures. I am not going to
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: listen to your talk about Jesus Christ. I do not
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: believe in such things. Then Jesus says, he that believeth
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: not shall be damned. That is very hard, say you,
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: But it is not so. It is not more hard
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: than the fact that if you reject the compass and
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: the pole star, you will not reach your port. There
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: is no help for it. It must be so. You say,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: you will have nothing to do with Jesus and his blood,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: and you pooh pooh all religion. You will find it
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: hard to laugh these matters down when you come to die,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: when the clammy sweat must be wiped from your brow,
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: and your heart beats against your ribs as if it
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to leap out and fly away from God, Oh soul.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: You will find then that those Sundays and those services
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: and this old book are something more and better than
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: you thought they were. And you will wonder that you
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: were so simple as to neglect any true help of salvation.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: Above all, what woe it will be to have neglected Christ,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: that pole star, which alone can guide the mariner to
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: the haven of rest. Where do you live? You live,
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: perhaps on the other side of the river, and you
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: have to cross a bridge before you can get home.
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: You have been so silly as to nurse the notion
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: that you do not believe in bridges, nor in boats,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: nor in the existence of such a thing as water.
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: You say, I am not going over any of your bridges,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: and I shall not get into any of your boats.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: I do not believe that there is a river, or
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: that there is any such stuff as water. You are
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: going home, and soon you come to the old bridge,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: but you will not cross it. Yonder is a boat,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: but you are determined that you will not get into it.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: There is the river, and you resolve that you will
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: not cross it in the usual way. And yet you
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: think it is very hard that you cannot get home.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: Surely something has destroyed your reasoning powers, for you would
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: not think it so hard if you were in your senses.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: If a man will not do the thing that is
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: necessary to a certain end, how can he expect to
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: gain from that. You have taken poison. And the physician
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: brings an antidote and says, take it quickly, or you
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: will die. But if you take it quickly, I will
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: guarantee that the poison will be neutralized. But you say, no, doctor,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I do not believe in antidotes. Let everything take its course,
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: let every tub stand on its own bottom. I will
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: have nothing to do with your remedy. Besides, I do
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: not believe that there is any remedy for the poison
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: I have taken. And what is more, I don't care
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: whether there is or not. Well, sir, you will die,
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: and when the coroner's inquest is held on your body,
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: the verdict will be served him right, so will it
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: be with you. If, having heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: you say, I am too much of an advanced man
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: to have anything to do with that old fashioned notion
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: of substitution. I shall not attend to the preacher's talk
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: about sacrifice and blood shedding. Then when you perish, the
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: verdict given by your conscience, which will sit upon the
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: king's quest at last, will run Thus suicide. He destroyed
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: his own soul, so says the old Book o Israel,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: thou hast destroyed thyself. Reader, I implore thee do not so.
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: End of chapter ten. Chapter eleven of Around the Wicket
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: Gate or a Friendly Talk with Seekers concerning Faith in
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus Christ by Charles Spurgeon. This LibriVox recording
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Marianne, Chapter eleven.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: To those who have believed, Friends, if you now have
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: begun to trust the Lord, trust him out and out.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: Let your faith be the most real and practical thing
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: in your whole life. Don't trust the Lord in mere
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: sentiment about a few great spiritual things, but trust Him
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: for everything forever, both for time and eternity, for body
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: and for soul. See how the Lord hangeth the world
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: upon nothing but his own word. It has neither prop
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: nor pillar. Yon great arch of Heaven stands without a
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: buttress or a wooden center. The Lord can and will
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: bear all the strain that faith has ever put upon him.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: The greatest troubles are easy to his power, and the
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: darkest mysteries are clear to his wisdom. Trust God up
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: to the hilt. Lean and lean hard. Yes, lean all
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: your weight and every other weight upon the Mighty God
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: of Jacob, the future you can safely leave with the Lord,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: whoever liveth and never changeth. The past is now in
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: your Saviour's hand, and you shall never be condemned for it,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: whatever it may have been, for the Lord has cast
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: your iniquities into the midst of the sea. Believe at
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: this moment, in your present privileges, you are saved. If
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: passed from death unto life, and you are saved. In
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: the old slave days, a lady brought her black servant
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: on board an English ship, and she laughingly said to
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: the captain, I suppose if I and Aunt Chloe were
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: to go to England, she would be free. Madam, said
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: the captain. She is now free. The moment she came
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: on board a British vessel, she was free. When the
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: Negro woman knew this, she did not leave the ship.
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: Not she It was not the hope of liberty that
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: made her bold, but the fact of liberty. So you
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: are not now merely hoping for eternal life. But he
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: that believeth in Him hath everlasting life. Except this as
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: a fact revealed in the Sacred Word. And begin to
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: rejoice accordingly. Do not reason about it or call it
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: in question. Believe it and leap for joy. I want
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: my reader, upon believing in the Lord Jesus, to believe
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: for eternal salvation. Do not be content with the notion
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: that you can receive a new birth which will die out,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: a heavenly life which will expire, a pardon which will
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: be recalled. The Lord Jesus gives to his sheep eternal life.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: And do not be at rest until you have it. Now.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: If it be eternal, how can it die out? Be
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: saved out and out for eternity. There is a living
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth forever. Do not
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: be put off with a temporary change, a sort of
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: grace which will only bloom to fade. You are now
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: starting on the railway of grace. Take a ticket all
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: the way through. I have no commission to preach to
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: you salvation for a time. The gospel I am bidden
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: to set before you. Is he that believeth and is
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: baptized shall be saved. He shall be saved from sin
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: and from going back to sin, from turning aside to
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: the broad road. May the Holy Spirit lead you to
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: believe for nothing less than that. Do you mean? Says
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: one that I am to believe. If I once trust Christ,
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: I shall be saved, whatever sin I may choose to commit.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: I have never said anything of the kind. I have
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: described true salvation as a thorough change of heart, of
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: so radical a kind that it will alter your tastes
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: and desires. And I say that if you have such
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: a change wrought in you by the Holy Spirit, it
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: will be permanent. For the Lord's work is not like
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: the cheap work of the present day, which soon goes
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: to pieces. Trust the Lord to keep you, however long
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: you may live, and however much you may be tempted,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: and according to your faith, so it be unto you.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: Believe in Jesus for everlasting life. Oh that you may
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: also trust the Lord for all the sufferings of this
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: present time in the world, you will have tribulation. Learn
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: by faith to know that all things work together for good,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: and then submit yourself to the Lord's will. Look at
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the sheep when it is being shorn. If it lies
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: quite still, the shears will not hurt it. If it
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: struggles or even shrinks, it may be pricked. Submit yourselves
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: under the hand of God, and affliction will lose its sharpness.
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: Self will and repining cause us a hundred times more
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: grief than our afflictions themselves. So believe your Lord as
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: to be certain that his will must be far better
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: than yours, And therefore you need not only submit to it,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: but even rejoice in it. Trust in the Lord Jesus.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: In the matter of sanctification, certain friends appear to think
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: that the Lord Jesus cannot sanctify them wholly speak soul
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: and body. Hence they willingly give way to such and
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: such sins, under the notion that there is no help
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: for it, but that they must pay tribute to the
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: devil as long as they live in that particular form.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: Do not basely bow your neck in bondage to any sin,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: but strike hard for liberty, be it anger or unbelief,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: or sloth, or any other form of iniquity. We are able,
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: by divine grace to drive out the Canaanite, And what
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: is more, we must drive him out. No virtue is
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: impossible to him that believeth in Jesus, and no sin
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: need have victory over him. Indeed, it is written sin
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: under the law, but under grace. Believe for high degrees
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: of joy in the Lord and likeness to Jesus, and
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: advance to take full pasas session of these precious things.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: For as thou believest, so it shall be unto thee.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: All things are possible to him that believeth And he
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: who is the chief of sinners may yet be not
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: a whit behind the greatest of saints often realize the
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: joy of heaven. This is grand faith, and yet it
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: is no more than we ought to have within a
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: very short time. The man who believes in the Lord
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: Jesus shall be with him where he is. This head
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: will wear a crown. These eyes shall see the King
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: in his beauty. These ears shall hear his own dear voice.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: This soul shall be in glory, and this poor body
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: shall be raised from the dead and joined in in
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: corruption to the perfected soul. Glory, glory, glory, and so
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  Speaker 1: near so sure. Let us at once rehearse the music
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  Speaker 1: and anticipate the bliss. But Christ One, we are not
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: there yet. No, but faith fills us with delight in
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: the blessed prospect, And meanwhile it sustains us on the
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  Speaker 1: road reader, I long that you may be a firm
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  Speaker 1: believer in the Lord alone. I want you to get
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  Speaker 1: wholly upon the rock and not keep a foot on
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  Speaker 1: the sand. In this mortal life. Trust God for all things,
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: and trust him alone. This is the way to live.
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  Speaker 1: I know it by experience. God's bare arm is quite
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: enough to lean upon. I will give you a bit
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: of the experience of an old laboring man. I once
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: knew he feared God above many, and was very deeply
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: taught of the spirit. My picture will show you what
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: kind of a man. He was. Great at hedging and ditching,
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: but greater at simple trust. Here is how he described faith.
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  Speaker 1: It was a bitter winter, and I had no work
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  Speaker 1: and no bread in the house. The children were crying.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: The snow was deep, and my way was dark. My
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: old master told me I might have a bit of
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: wood when I wanted it. So I thought a bit
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: of fire would warm the poor children, and I went
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: out with my chopper to get some fuel. I was
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: standing near a deep ditch full of snow which had
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: drifted into it many feet deep, in fact, I did
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: not know how deep. While aiming a blow at a
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: bit of wood, my bill hook slipped out of my
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: hand and went right down into the snow, where I
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: could not hope to find it. Standing there with no food,
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: no fire, and the chopper gone. Something seemed to say
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: to me, will Richardson, can you trust God now? And
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: my very soul said that I can. This is true faith,
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  Speaker 1: the faith which trust the Lord when the bill hook
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: is gone on, The faith which believes God when all
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: outward appearances give him the lie. The faith which is
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: happy with God alone when all friends turn their backs
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: upon you, dear reader, May you and I have this
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: precious faith, this real faith, this God honoring faith. The
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: Lord's truth deserves it, his love claims it, his faithfulness
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: constrains it. Happy is he who has it. He is
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: the man whom the Lord loves. And the world shall
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: be made to know it before all is finished. After all,
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: the very best faith is an every day faith, The
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: faith which deals with bread and water, coats and stockings,
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: children and cattle, house rent and weather. The superfine confectionery
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: religion which is only available on Sundays and in drawing
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: room meetings and Bible readings, will never take a soul
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  Speaker 1: to heaven till life becomes one long conference and there
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: are seven sabbaths in a week. Faith is doing her
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: very best when for many years she plods on month
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: by month, trusting the Lord about the sick husband, the
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: failing daughter, the declining business, the unconverted friend, and such
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: like things. Faith also helps us to use the world
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: as not abusing it. It is good at hard work
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  Speaker 1: and at daily duty. It is not an angelic thing
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: for skies and stars, but a human grace at home
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  Speaker 1: in kitchens and workshops. It is a sort of maid
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: of all work, and is at home at every kind
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: of labor and in every rank of life. It is
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: a grace for every day, all the year round. Holy
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: confidence in God is never out of work. Faith where
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: is so valued at the heavenly court that she always
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: has one fine piece of work work, or another on
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: the wheel or in the furnace. Men dream that heroes
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: are only to be made on special occasions, once or
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: twice in a century. But in truth, the finest heroes
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: are home spun and are more often hidden in obscurity
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: than platformed by public observation. Trust in the living God
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: is the bullion out of which heroism is coined. Perseverance
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: in well doing is one of the fields in which
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: faith grows not flowers, but the wheat of her harvest,
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: plodding on in hard work, bringing up a family on
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: a few shillings a week, bearing constant pain with patience,
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: and so forth. These are the feats of valor through
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: which God is glorified by the rank and file of
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: his believing people. Reader, you and I will be of
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: one mind in this. We will not pine to be great,
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: but we will be eager to be good. For this
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: we will rely upon the Lord, our God, whose we are,
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: and whom we serve. We will ask to be made wholly.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: Throughout every day of the week. We will pray to
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: our God as much about our daily business as about
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: our soul's salvation. We will trust him concerning our farm
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: and our turn ups and our cows, as well as
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: concerning our spiritual privileges and our hope of heaven. The
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: Lord Jehovah is our household God. Jesus is our brother
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: born for adversity, and the Holy Spirit is our comforter
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: in every hour of trial. We have not an unapproachable God.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: He hears, he pities, he helps. Let us trust Him
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: without a break, without a doubt, without a hesitation. The
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: life of faith is life within God's wicked gait. If
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: we have hitherto stood trembling outside in the world of unbelief,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: may the Holy Spirit enable us now to take the
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: great decisive step and say, once for all, Lord, I believe,
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: Help thou mine unbelief. End of Chapter eleven and end
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: of Around the wicket Gate by Charles Haddensburgeon