LivePrayerSermon 903. The Way Everlasting
A sermon
(No. 903)
Delivered by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Lead me in the way everlasting."- Psalm 139:24.
WE must all of us have a "way." We must be journeying, for this is not our resting place. We cannot abide in any one stay."Forward" is the word of command. As the round earth never pauses but perpetually revolves. As the stars never halt in theircourse but traverse incessantly their ordained orbits. As the rivers evermore seek the sea-as the ocean waves unrestinglypursue each other-even so feel we the common motion and always must we move onward, onward through this life unto the next-onwardforever and ever.
Since we must have a way, it is of the highest importance that our way should be a right one. Important, because if it isnot right we shall not long be happy in our course since the happiness of those who follow the path of evil is fleeting asa meteor, mocking as a will-o'-the-wisp, deceptive as the mirage, frail as a bubble on the wave and unsubstantial as a phantomof the night. Today the path of sin leads us through flowery meads and groves resounding with song of birds, but tomorrowit will wind among the desolations of many generations where souls and all their joys are withered as the green herb in thesummer sun. The ways of righteousness are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. The good is growing and the pleasuredeepening where the wise in heart are walking, but nowhere else. We have need, then, to find the right way, that we may behappy pilgrims along it.
We have need of the right way, also, because whatever the way we pursue, others will be affected by it. Little ones who gatheraround our knees will think, "father's way" must be the way for them. Servants, neighbors, brothers, sisters and if we arevery young, playmates and school fellows under our influence-any or all of these will be affected for good or evil by ourchoices. Our following the wrong way will lead them to the wrong and we shall become a ministry of evil unto them if we chooseevil unto ourselves. More important, still, is it that we should choose the right way because of the right end. "All's wellthat ends well." But what if the way is such that it must end amiss-must lead to the blackness of darkness forever-must landus "where their worm dies not and their fire is not quenched"? Oh, then it will be terrible to have been found in such a way!Terrible for our souls to meet such a doom!
May it be yours, my dear Hearers, to be led early in life through the gate of faith in Jesus which leads into the straightand narrow way of eternal life! May it be yours to be kept in that way, your faith confirmed by following in it. May it beyours to be found in that way when the summons shall come from the Master to render up your account. May it be yours to win,through Divine Grace, the sure results of perseverance in the way of holiness by reaching that blessed end that has no end-thejoy of the blessed in the land of the hereafter at the right hand of the Most High!
We shall take the text as a prayer and point out to you three things in it which strike us as being somewhat remarkable. Thefirst is a remarkable attribute of the right way-it is said to be "everlasting." Secondly, a remarkable confession impliedin the language here employed. And then, thirdly, the remarkably comprehensive prayer contained in the words before us.
I. First, then, A REMARKABLE ATTRIBUTE OF THE RIGHT WAY-IT IS "THE WAY EVERLASTING." It is most certain that the way of manymen cannot be everlasting. The way of the sinful is not so. I hope, with regard to some, that their way will last but fora very little time, for it is the way of evil. May they soon turn from it! "It is a long lane that has no turning." May theirroad be so hedged up by God's Providence and Grace that they may be compelled to take another road. May their prayer be untoGod, "turn me and I shall be turned." The way of the sinner ought not to be a way everlasting, for if it should be, it mustbe a way of everlasting sorrow. The sinner's way of pleasure is far from being everlasting, for even here the wine cup ofsin first yields the sweetness of intoxication, but afterwards it becomes insipid with satiety. And after that it grows bitterwith remorse, and as for the dregs, what a Hell burns within them!
The way of pleasure in sin is but as the way of foam on the breaker, soon to disappear. The devil would gladly persuade menthat their life shall always be as it is, that they shall dance on forever-forever as the merry butterflies that need nottoil and that flit away the golden hours. He would have them forget the killing frosts that will blight forever each idlewing. Death and the Justice of God have decreed that the way of pleasure and the life of sin shall not be everlasting. Anend must surely come to the houses of cards built on carnal merriment-their bowing walls must lie level with the dust-theirtottering fences must fall down to the ground.
The way of the merely moral man is not a way everlasting. It may be that he is one who steadily pursues money, conductinghis business on the best principles, commanding the fullest confidence of the mercantile community and the admiration of allwho can appreciate tact and principle. The man may manage to acquire wealth, it may grow from day to day-his account may belarge at the bank, his capital may be ample and the stream of interest that flows in may, every day, be more considerable.But this cannot always last. There may come disaster and loss and that which was long in accumulation may very swiftly beswept away. At any rate, death will put an end to the filling of the money bags. Like Jesus in the Temple, Death will enterand overturn the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sell doves-and with a voice of authority he willcry, "Take these things out!"
Men will find that they cannot barter and bargain, that they cannot accumulate and grow rich when the time has come to layaside their mortal bodies and face the Judge of all the earth! These things of time, however dear to them, those who are summonedto the land of spirits must leave. Bitter the parting, but it is inevitable. Naked came they forth and naked must they return-letthem have gained what they may. It may be that the man, instead of making money, finds it difficult to make ends meet andhis way is that of plodding hard and industriously to rear a family as respectably as he can. This has in it much to be commended,but even then, unsanctified by nobler ends, it is not a way everlasting, for there is a land where they neither marry norare given in marriage and where, consequently, there shall be no wife nor children for whom to toil and no avocation for theworker who lived by bread alone.
There will be no sphere for the mere servant of men or master of men to occupy in Heaven. The mere earth-server will be outof place-his way must come to an end. The arm must be paralyzed that earned the bread and the fingers that drove the pen orwielded the needle must rest in long repose. And when they are reanimated at the Resurrection they cannot pursue their oldtoil. If they know nothing but the handicraft of earth, their way will have a wretched end. The way of the merely moral isnot a way everlasting. It might be if it were consecrated by the Grace of God. These more common things might be the preludeto the everlasting service before the Throne of God, but inasmuch as the life is unconsecrated, let it be spent as it may-theway is a way that comes to an end.
The way of the purposeless and dabbler is not everlasting. How many a man's life reminds you, instead of an everlasting way,of a mere cul-de-sac-a blind alley, as we say-down which you wander merely to come back again! Hundreds of men's lives arelike that-like the famous king in the nursery rhyme who led his troops up a hill and then down again. They live and they dieand that is all that you can say of many. Their way is a vain show-it passes and is gone and we say, "Where is it?" Some remindme of those circular lanes which we have sometimes been lost in-you go round and you come hack to the same place again andyou are no more forward. As the tramp of the blind horse going round the mill, such is the way of many-from morn till eve,from year to year-they are mere pendulums swinging to and fro. Their life would be, if they could exist forever, an everlastingtoil. But since they must die, it must come to an end, and their unhappy spirits must remain forever in that pathless wildernessof woe from which no traveler ever finds his way of escape.
My Brothers and Sisters, let me remind you, also, that the way, even of some religious people, is not the way everlasting.I mean the path, for instance, of those who are hypocritical. They may put on the mask and look like beauty, itself, but deathwill rudely dash the visor on one side and let their face be seen. Like the veiled prophet, who wore over his leprous browa mask of silver, such are many men. They may pass in the crowd as bright and beautiful, but when the time comes for themto be seen in the light of God, their loathsomeness will be discovered. The way of the Pharisee, again-who differs somewhatfrom the hypocrite-is not the way everlasting. He will not always dare to say, "God, I thank You that I am not as other men."Not always will he be able to boast, "I fast twice in the week. I pay tithes of all that I possess." The time will come whenhe will see all this outside washing of the platter to have been of no service, because his inward part was full of very wickedness.What will be his dismay and despair!
No, Brethren, neither the way of the hypocrite, the formalist, nor the Pharisee, is the way everlasting. Neither is any waybut that which is according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Do not tell me that if you are sincere it will little matter whichway you take! You know better! If you sincerely believe that you are going to St. Paul's, or to London Bridge, when you leavethis Tabernacle and you turn to the right, you will probably find yourselves at Clapham or at Tooting, but not at St. Paul'sor London Bridge, with all your sincerity of misbelief. The sincere belief that you will be saved by your good works willby no means avert your damnation if you persist in refusing to trust in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus is the only way of salvationand if you will not walk in that way, there is no other.
Our Lord's teaching leaves us no room to hope for the salvation of unbelievers. "He that believes and is baptized shall besaved." But what of those who do not believe? May they not be sincerely mistaken? May they not be very good people, afterall, and be saved in their own way? Our Lord's reply is sharp, clear and decisive, "He that believes not shall be damned."He has nothing else for them but that! Christ is too great and too honest to court popularity, as many do nowadays, by anaffectation that right or wrong are much the same. The wicked charity of this age sickens us with its deceptive cant, as itwhines out, "It will little matter what you believe. Nothing, nowadays, is of very great consequence. Believe what you likeand it shall be all right in the long run." No, but according to the Gospel of Jesus you must believe the Truth of God andhave faith in the power of the Truth, for a lie will not regenerate you! A lie will not fit you to see the face of God. Alie will not conduct you to Heaven, but only that Truth which has the stamp and seal of God and of His Holy Spirit.
I have thus shown you that there are many ways which are not everlasting. Let us now notice that the right way-the way offaith in God and of a life that flows out of faith in God-the way, indeed, which Jesus trod, the way which we tread when wefollow in Jesus' footsteps-is the way everlasting, because it is a way which was mapped out upon everlasting principles. TheTruth of God will never die. The stars will grow dim. The sun will pale his glory, but the Truth of God will be forever young.Integrity, uprightness, honesty, love, goodness-these are all imperishable. No grave can ever entomb these immortal principles.They have been in prison, but they have been freer than before. Those who have enshrined them in their hearts have been burnedat the stake, but out of their ashes other witnesses have arisen. No sea can drown, no storm can wreck, no abyss can swallowup the ever living Truth of God!
You cannot kill goodness and truth and integrity and faith and holiness! The way that is consistent with these must be a wayeverlasting. Holiness is a way everlasting, because it is pursued by the possessors of a life that is everlasting. No manenters the way of truth, righteousness, faith, love to God and love to his neighbor but the man who has received the new birth.Now, the product of the new birth is not like the fruit of the flesh which is mortal and perishable-it is a living and incorruptibleseed that lives and abides forever, so that the man who is born again can no more die than God Himself! He has received thelife of Christ within him, and, according to the Scriptures, because Christ lives he shall live also. It is an everlastingway, then, because the pilgrims who tread it, though they are mortals to all appearance, are yet, in the sight of God, immortal!They bear within them a life unquenchable, whose endurance shall be coexistent with the life of Jehovah Himself.
Godliness is a way everlasting, because no circumstances can by any possibility necessitate any change in it. The man wholives by policy is like a sailor on a gusty day, or who has a foul wind against him and must tack about to reach first thispoint, and then the other, and makes but slow progress, after all, in the direction which he really wishes to pursue. Butthe man who has the life of God and follows the way of the Truth of God is like the steamship which plows its road straighton, wind or tide notwithstanding. Why needs it to tack? It bears its force within itself and is not dependent upon the extraneouscircumstances of winds and waves! Happy is that man who is in this condition! If he is poor, he may cheerfully pursue theway of Truth and find his poverty a blessing! If he is rich, the same immortal principles which guided him in poverty willsuffice him now that he has come to the possession of wealth.
If he were elected to a kingdom, such a man, having the Law of God in his heart, would know how to walk and to behave himselfright royally. His way is everlasting because he has not to stop every morning and enquire, "How am I to behave today? Whatis the new rule by which I shall shape my course?" Your tricky politicians, who this day are one thing and that the other,as they fancy the public mind may change-these had need to consult their barometer to know what kind of weather the popularwill ordains. But we, if we are taught of God to do the right thing, care not about the
weather or the will of man. Whether it is fair or foul-whether the sun shines or not-we would still serve our God and do theright, by His Grace, and if the heavens should fall, expect to still find a shelter.
Righteousness is the way everlasting, because such a way, even death, itself, shall not terminate. The man who learns to liveas God would have him live, will find death to be only a circumstance in his immortality. He will pass onward, with no morepause than the earth makes when the moon comes between her and the sun. As when the iron horse pursues his rapid way, he shootsthrough a tunnel and is out of it again, making the darkness but an interlude in his progress- even so is death a small matterto the converted and regenerate man! The man who walks in the way of God passes through death as through a temporary gloom,but he still pursues the even tenor of his way. What he did on earth he shall do in Heaven, only he shall do it better andafter a nobler sort!
On earth he loved his God. In Heaven he shall do the same. On earth he found his joy in a sight of Christ-in Heaven he shallenjoy that sight more near and unveiled! On earth he loved the true and the right and the good-and in Heaven he shall dwellin the midst of the city that is of pure gold and whose light is brighter than the sun, where only holiness and perfectionare admitted. He shall not even change his company, for the Church militant in which he fought on earth is also the Churchtriumphant with which he shall reign forever and ever in Heaven! You see, then, that the godly man's path is a way everlasting.I might have said much more, but this shall suffice.
II. Dear Brothers and Sisters, the next remarkable thing in the text is THE CONFESSION WHICH IS MADE.
David says, "Lead me in the way everlasting." David was a good man, a Grace-taught man, a spiritual man, an eminently spiritualman and yet he required to be led in the way-"Lead me in the way everlasting." What is more, David was a deeply experiencedman. This Psalm is towards the end of the book and I suppose his hair was all gray when he wrote it. He had come to threescoreyears and ten, probably, and there he is, dear man, able to teach others, yet pleading, "Lead me, lead me."
He was a ripe Believer, for he had not only the years of age, but the experience of a much-tried life. In fact, David seemsto have been an epitome of all men. You never had a trouble but what you could find something to suit you under it in thePsalms. And I think you never had a joy but what you discovered a verse that would help you to sing out your joy. David, somehowor other, seems to have known all the ups and downs, all the hills and all the valleys of Christian experience and yet forall that he cries, "Lead me, lead me." David was the man after God's own heart, despite his slips. His sin was the soldier'scommon sin-we must remember that. His position was an extraordinary one, such as ours can never be. He was a man after God'sheart because of his deep sincerity, his child-likeness and his warmth of soul. And yet notwithstanding that and all his eminencein Divine Grace, he says, "Lead me, lead me."
What does this prayer teach us? Why, that the most mature Christian, if he judges aright, feels that he needs as much to beled in the right way as if he were only beginning the spiritual life! The words seems to me to be almost humiliating, "Leadme." It is a little child saying, "Lead me, Mother, lead me." It is more than that-it is a blind man putting out his hands,he cannot see, he cannot find his way and he is begging-"Lead me." Such babes are we. Such blind men are we, apart from theguiding Grace of God! Oh, how dependent we are, then, and what confessions ought we to make who are so much less than David,so much younger, the most of us, so much less experienced than he! How ought we to pray emphatically, "Lead me, Lord, forI am so little, so uninstructed and have had such little experience. Lead me in the way everlasting."
This remarkable confession and prayer should suggest two things-ignorance and impotence. When we say, "Lead me," if it isa blind man, it means ignorance-he cannot see the way and therefore he needs to be led, though he may be strong enough towalk if he only knew the way. "Lead me, Lord," also signifies impotence if it is judged of as the child's case-he needs tobe led in another sense because he has not strength enough in his little feet to go without the help of his mother's hand."Lead me in the way." So, you see, our confession should be double-of our ignorance and of our impotence-of our need of knowledgeand of our lack of strength.
1. First, our need of knowledge. "'Lead me in the way everlasting,' for I do not know that way everlasting. Naturally I knownothing of it, nor can I, as a natural man, until You teach me-for only the spiritual man receives spiritual things and thecarnal mind cannot know the things of God, for they are spiritual and must be spiritually discerned. O God, how dangerousis my case and how hopeless, too, unless You teach me! I pray You, therefore, instruct me! Enlighten me. Lead me in the wayeverlasting! O Lord, I may well confess that I need this instruction because even
though I am converted and so know something of Your way, yet it often happens that I know not which is the right way throughdefect ofjudgment.
"If willing to do the right, yet it may sometimes happen that I may put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Though anxiousand even desirous to take the right road, yet I may come to a place where two ways meet which seem, both of them, to be theright one and I may not know which way to choose. My judgment, Lord, is very imperfect and apt to err. Lead me, I pray You.He that leans to his own judgment is foolish and he that trusts to his own heart is a fool-neither to my judgment nor to myheart would I trust, but say, 'Lord, lead me.'" Moreover, in addition to a deficient judgment we ought to confess, and I hopewe shall humbly do so, that we are apt to be misled by vitiated affections. There is a leaning in us all towards the evilway if we dare pursue it! Ah, how soon we touch the forbidden fruit! How does the heart run after vanity, even when we haveresolved by Divine Grace that we will always close our eyes to it!
That man must have well listed his door who can keep out Satan's temptations. But he who should have done that and left nocrack by which the old serpent could enter would find a serpent within the core of his own heart, in his own corruptions."Alas, then, O God, since my soul leans towards evil and will go amiss if it can, lead You me, lest my depraved affectionsshould further pervert my judgment and I should leave the King's highway." In addition to this, all over this world thereare influences which would make us take the wrong way, deceiving us into the notion that we are right. The air is not clearanywhere-there are mists and fog all around-the best of men often have to pause and feel the hot sweat upon their brow throughtrembling anxiety as to the right course. Which is right? Which is wrong?
This fog of custom-everybody does it! This fog of tradition-everybody has done it these hundreds of years! The dread of beingsingular, the dislike of being thought to be precise and I know not what beside-all these cast a mist about us. Oh, how easyit is when we are traveling through a thick and murky atmosphere for us to mistake the way! Lead us, then, Lord! Lead us inthe way everlasting! Alas, how many have set out, as they thought, under God's guidance on the voyage of life, but they havenot really received Christ nor His life within them? And so, being deluded by the false lights of wreckers, have soon cometo everlasting shipwreck, believing all the while that they were sailing into the celestial haven!
Dear Brothers and Sisters, judge not yourselves to be wise, or the Word will judge you to be foolish! But go, now, with aconfession of your ignorance unto God in silent prayer and lift up this petition, "Guide me, O You great Jehovah! I am a pilgrimthrough this misty land. I am foolish, You are wise-guide me with Your powerful hand, conduct me safely, let no enemy temptme from the narrow way, but lead me in the way everlasting."
2. But, secondly, the confession also contains an admission of lack of strength, for it is not merely, "Show me," which wouldsuffice if the man were strong, but, "Lead me," which, as I have said before, is as the child that needs its mother's finger,or its father's supporting hand. We not only need knowledge, but we need power to run in the right way. Morally and physicallymen can do right if they will. "It is as easy," says one, "for a man not to get drunk as it is to open his hand." And thatis a fact, for if a man, when he holds the intoxicating glass, would only open his hand the liquor would fall to the groundand the drink would not make a beast of him.
So any other sin may easily be avoided, so far as the moral and physical power are concerned. But then there is a lack ofwill in the man, and that is the point-and therefore we need to ask of God to give us will, which is the real power. Oh, howirresolute a man often is concerning a sin which he knows to be a sin, but which enchants him with its sweetness! Ah, howa man will say, "I must give it up, but I cannot!" How, like the serpent in the old story of Laocoon, Sin will twist itselfround and round a man and if he tugs and pulls away one coil, yet there is another and another and another! Ah, how men dallywith sin! When it comes to plucking off the right arm and plucking out the right eye, you say to yourselves, "We do not likelosing this arm, and besides, we have not yet found the proper knife to take it off with."
Ah, if you had the proper knife, yet you would be slow to make the gash! You would plead that it might be spared at leasta little longer-that a little good work might yet be done with it! There will always be some excuse for delay in giving upsin and if the surgeon does not interpose and take it off, the mortification of sin will spread through the entire body beforethe man will be willing to lose his limb. Sin dies hard. It makes a hundred excuses for itself and pleads, "Is it not a littleone? Is it not a sweet one?"
O Lord, then, give me strength of resolution, and when I know that a thing is wrong, help me to have done with it! And whenI perceive an action to be right, help me to make haste and delay not to keep Your Commandments. O my
Lord, may I never try to patch up a peace between my conscience and myself by trimming and compromising. If I know a thingto be Your will, may I never parley nor question-for that is to rebel. The spirit that parleys is the essence of high treason.May I put away all questioning and, obedient to You, at once yield my will to be Yours. Lead me, Lord, lead me! Uphold mewith Your hand of Grace and give me strength and resolution to be holy!
There are some who have strength and resolution enough by fits and starts, but they have not stability enough to persevere.If Heaven could be won by one great leap, how soon they would have it! But if to enter into the pearly gates one must go onpilgrimage all the way, then they cannot hold out to the end. Lord, lead me! How speedily do I begin to shrink! How soon wouldmy rebellious heart draw back from Your service! O give me persevering Grace and when I would stand aside, lead me forward!Draw, draw me, good Lord! Yes, gently tug at my laggard soul and when-
"My heart can neither fly nor go To reach celestial joys,"
Then-
"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, With all Your power Divine. Come, shed abroad a Savior's love, And that shall kindle mine."
Lead me, Lord! You see what is meant by the prayer and I need not go further, though there is much room for enlargement. Needof knowledge and lack of strength are both confessed in this remarkable verse.
III. Let us close by noticing THE REMARKABLY COMPREHENSIVE PRAYER before us. I do not know many of the collects or particularlywish to know them, but I will give you my text for a collect and you shall never find its superior. Let this be your constantprayer-you may use it as long as you like and as often as you please, for if it is sincere, it will never be a vain repetition-"Leadme in the way everlasting."
1. Now, notice this prayer very carefully. First, observe how comprehensive it is, because of its object. Its object is thewhole man. "Lead me-not half of me, not part of me. Lead me in the whole way-not in some part of the way, but in the wholeway, that is to say, let my thoughts be led in the way that I may not think unrighteously, that I may not believe the Truthof God in part, but that I may be sound in the faith. Lead me that I may not believe false doctrine. Lord, lead my understandingand my intellect in the way of Revelation-make me to know Your Covenant Truths and the great Doctrines of Grace. Let me notbe satisfied to know half Your Truth and think I know it all, but lead me into all Your Truth. Let there not be one doctrinethat I would erase, nor one precept that I would forget, nor one single word in Your Book that I would blot out. Lord, leadme as to my understanding, knowledge and thoughts-lead me in the way everlasting."
He means his emotions, too, as well as his intellectual part. '"Lord, lead me in Your way, for well I know that if my headshould go without my heart, yet were I all undone. Lord, help me to love not the world nor the things that are of the world,but lead me in the way everlasting. Let my best passions boil when Christ is the fire. Let my heart be in its best trim whenChrist has come to see it, like a garden that is watered by His Presence and whose fruits are ripened by the sunlight of Hislove." He refers his tongue to the same leading. "Lord, grant that my tongue may not be a slanderous tongue, or a triflingtongue, or a lascivious tongue, or a tongue that talks for mere talk's sake. But, Lord, salt my tongue for me. Grant me Graceso to speak that my conversation shall edify the hearer. Lead me in the way everlasting."
He means, indeed, himself as to his actions. "I would keep Your way, O Lord, when I go to my chamber-not sinning there-andwhen I come down to my meals-not getting out of Your way by wrong-eating or drinking. When I go to my shop, or to my work,to the field or to the market, to the streets and to the Exchange let me not err in anything. Still, Lord, lead me in theway everlasting and may no path of business, no path of recreation, no path of society, no path of solitude ever take me outof Your way, but wherever I am let the whole of me be altogether and wholly in the whole of Your way." You see what a fullprayer it is as to its objects!
2. But it is also a great prayer, if you consider it in the matter of its modes. "Lead me." How does God lead? Brothers andSisters, He leads us by the Law. The Law tells us what we ought to do. The Ten Commandments of the Law are, as it were, tensignposts, all of them saying-"This is the way; walk you in it." He leads us, better still, by the example of Christ-
"We read our duty in Your Word,
But in His life the Law appears Drawn out in living characters."
The Law tells us what we should do, but Jesus has done it for us and shown us how to do it! The whole life of Christ is aleading of us in the way. He leads us in the way by His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enlightens the conscience, influencesthe will, guides the judgment and sweetly leads the heart in the path of sanctity. Under God, the Holy Spirit, the ministryoften becomes our guide in the way everlasting. Some choice word from God's servants, coming at a right time, may check uswhen we would do evil, may inspirit us when we would faint in the way of right. And then good books and I know not what besides-theexample of the saints, the hints of Providence, the emotions of our own hearts when near to God-these are often prompts toguide and lead us in the way everlasting. So, you see, as to its modes the prayer of the text is very comprehensive.
3. It is, dear Brothers and Sisters, a great prayer, if you think for a minute of its issues. "Lead me in the way everlasting."Oh, what a word is that word, "everlasting!" I think I see before me the gate of pearl, as though this word, "everlasting,"were that glorious gate. With what soft radiance it beams upon my eyes at this moment! And lo, it turns upon its hinges! Itstands wide open and what do I see? Everlasting! Everlasting! Why, I see before me the sea of glass and the harpers standingon that waveless ocean, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." And what do I hear? I hear theirsongs like the sound of many waters, yet sweet as harpers harping with their harps!
And what do I see as I gaze, but Jesus Christ, the sun and center of Heaven's Glory? And I behold His saints who trod thisway everlasting on earth, continuing, still, to tread it, proceeding further into the bliss of His Presence and into the ecstasyof His love and into the experience of His fellowship! Every day is advancing in this way that has no end, this way everlasting!Oh, what a prayer this is! I, when I say, "Lead me in the way everlasting," as good as ask for a holy life, a happy deathand a Heaven to crown it all! I do ask for all that is in the Covenant, all that Christ came to give, all that God has laidup in store and all that the Spirit works in men. It is a mighty prayer, indeed!
4. The last remark is the prayer is most comprehensive as to the persons who may fitly use it. It has but one stroke and aim.It is, "Lead me, lead me." But it is suitable to thousands. It is a great prayer and it is just suitable to your lips- yours,my Brother! Yours, my Sister. Yours, whom I could not address by either of those names. Yours, O stranger to the Grace ofGod. "Lead me." Who is there here whom it would not suit? There are none too well grown in Divine Grace and none too far gonein sin!
"Lead me." Is there one that is so far off from God and hope that she has given herself up to despair? When your heart isoverwhelmed within you, He can lead you to the Rock that is higher than you are and bring you out of the way of ruin intothe way everlasting! Is there a man here whose backslidings have become so numerous that he dares no longer look up? Friend,your prayer can still reach God's ear! "Lead me in the way everlasting." Poor Prodigal, if you cannot return, if you feelyourself too vile to hope, yet He can come to you, even if to Him you cannot come! Breathe the prayer, "Lead me, Lord, evenme, from the depths of Hell. I cry unto You like Jonah out of the whale's belly! Out of the Hell of my despair, out of theHell of my infamous sin, I venture to ask You-black-handed, black-mouthed, black-hearted as I am-lead me, O my God!"
He will hear you, Sinner, through the intercession of Jesus. He will wash you in the atoning blood. He will guide you andbring you, even you, into the way everlasting. Let it not, then, be omitted by any one of us to make this our prayer beforewe leave this house! I charge you, let not this evening's gathering be in vain, and I know it will be in vain to each onepresent who is not led so to pray. Come! Let us pray this prayer together and may the Lord hear us!
[Then the people bowed their heads and worshipped and said "Amen" after the following prayer.]
"O Lord, my God, lead me in the way everlasting! I need it! You have made me to teach others and my example influences many.Lead me in the way everlasting! And Your servants who gather around me, my beloved deacons and elders, whose example, also,will be potent for good if they are good, and for evil if they are evil-Lord, hear them as they say, 'Lead us in the way everlasting.'And the members of the Church, the many hundreds, yes, the thousands who are associated in Church fellowship here-who eatof Your bread and drink of Your cup-O hear them, such of them as are now present who shall now cry unto You, 'Lead me in theway everlasting.'
"Hear every Brother in dilemma and difficulty, every Sister in duty and danger, every heart that is weary, every soul thatis sick who says, 'Lead me in the way everlasting.' And Lord, hear the unconverted sinner as he breathes this desire
towards your Throne of Grace. Is there one here that has left the paths of virtue and of honesty and do his lips tremblinglysay, 'Lead me in the way everlasting'? Lord, hear his supplication! Lord, hear it for Jesus' sake. Where ever there standsor sits in this Tabernacle one old or young, rich or poor, learned or illiterate, moral or immoral-if there is such a onehere who in his heart says, 'Father, forgive me and lead me in the way everlasting'-O do You answer that prayer speedily,for Your dear Son's sake. And now, once more, for Jesus' sake we do each of us beseech you, 'Lead me in the way everlasting.'Amen."
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Psalm 139.
[Mr. Spurgeon's illness prevented his revising the sermons of last week and he much regrets that in the discourse entitled,"The Upper Hand," (Sermon #901), a passage concerning the Law has been wrongly printed. The mistake was corrected as soonas observed.]