Sermon 999. The Withering Work of the Spirit

(No. 999)

Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, July 9th, 1871, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower ofthe field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is grass.The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."-Isaiah 40:6-8.

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. Forall flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fallethaway: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."-1 Peter 1:23-25.

THE passage in Isaiah which I have just read in your hearing may be used as a very eloquent description of our mortality,and if a sermon should be preached from it upon the frailty of human nature, the brevity of life, and the certainty of death,no one could dispute the appropriateness of the text. Yet I venture to question whether such a discourse would strike thecentral teaching of the prophet. Something more than the decay of our material flesh is intended here; thecarnal mind, the flesh in another sense, was intended by the Holy Ghost when he bade his messenger proclaim those words.It does not seem to me that a mere expression of the mortality of our race was needed in this place by the context; it wouldhardly keep pace with the sublime revelations which surround it, and would in some measure be a digression from the subjectin hand. The notion that we are here simply and alone reminded of our mortality does not square with the New Testament expositionof it in Peter, which I have also placed before you as a text. There is another and more spiritual meaning here besideand beyond that which would be contained in the great and very obvious truth that all of us must die.

Look at the chapter in Isaiah with care. What is the subject of it? It is the divine consolation of Zion. Zion had been tossedto and fro with conflicts; she had been smarting under the result of sin. The Lord, to remove her sorrow, bids his prophetsannounce the coming of the long-expected Deliverer, the end and accomplishment of all her warfare and the pardon of all heriniquity. There is no doubt that this is the theme of the prophecy; and further, there is no sort ofquestion about the next point, that the prophet goes on to foretell the coming of John the Baptist as the harbinger ofthe Messiah. We have no difficulty in the explanation of the passage, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in thedesert a highway for our God;" for the New Testament again and again refers this to the Baptist and his ministry. The objectof the coming of the Baptist and the mission of the Messiah, whom he heralded, was the manifestation of divine glory. Observethefifth verse: "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lordhath spoken it." Well, what next? Was it needful to mention man's mortality in this connection? We think not. But there ismuch more appropriateness in the succeeding verses, if we see their deeper meaning. Do they not mean this? In order to makeroom for the display of the divine glory in Christ Jesus and his salvation, there would come a withering of all the glorywherein manboasts himself: the flesh should be seen in its true nature as corrupt and dying, and the grace of God alone should beexalted. This would be seen under the ministry of John the Baptist first, and should be the preparatory work of the Holy Ghostin men's hearts, in all time, in order that the glory of the Lord should be revealed and human pride be for ever confounded.

The Spirit blows upon the flesh, and that which seemed vigorous becomes weak, that which was fair to look upon is smittenwith decay; the true nature of the flesh is thus discovered, its deceit is laid bare, its power is destroyed, and there isspace for the dispensation of the ever-abiding word, and for the rule of the Great Shepherd, whose words are spirit and life.There is a withering wrought by the Spirit which is the preparation for the sowing and implanting by whichsalvation is wrought.

The withering before the sowing was very marvellously fulfilled in the preaching of John the Baptist. Most appropriately hecarried on his ministry in the desert, for a spiritual desert was all around him; he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.It was not his work to plant, but to hew down. The fleshly religion of the Jews was then in its prime. Phariseeism stalkedthrough the streets in all its pomp; men complacently rested in outward ceremonies only, andspiritual religion was at the lowest conceivable ebb. Here and there might be found a Simeon and an Anna, but for themost part men knew nothing of spiritual religion, but said in their hearts: "We have Abraham to our father," and this is enough.What a stir he made when he called the lordly Pharisees a generation of vipers! How he shook the nation with the declaration,"Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees"! Stern as Elias, his work was to level the mountains, and lay low everylofty imagination. That word, "Repent," was as a scorching wind to the verdure of self-righteousness, a killing blastfor the confidence of ceremonialism. His food and his dress called for fasting and mourning. The outward token of his ministrydeclared the death amid which he preached, as he buried in the waters of Jordan those who came to him. "Ye must die and beburied, even as he who is to come will save by death and burial." This was the meaning of the emblem which he set before thecrowd.His typical act was as thorough in its teaching as were his words; and as if that were not enough, he warned them of ayet more searching and trying baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and of the coming of one whose fan was in his hand,thoroughly to purge his floor. The Spirit in John blew as the rough north wind, searching and withering, and made him to bea destroyer of the vain gloryings of a fleshly religion, that the spiritual faith might be established.

When our Lord himself actually appeared, he came into a withered land, whose glories had all departed. Old Jesse's stem wasbare, and our Lord was the branch which grew out of his root. The scepter had departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from betweenhis feet, when Shiloh came. An alien sat on David's throne, and the Roman called the covenant-land his own. The lamp of prophecyburned but dimly, even if it had not utterly gone out. No Isaiah had arisen of late to consolethem, nor even a Jeremiah to lament their apostacy. The whole economy of Judaism was as a worn-out vesture; it had waxedold, and was ready to vanish away. The priesthood was disarranged. Luke tells us that Annas and Caiaphas were high prieststhat year-two in a year or at once, a strange setting aside of the laws of Moses. All the dispensation which gathered aroundthe visible, or as Paul calls it, the "worldly" sanctuary, was coming to a close; and when our Lord had finished his work,theveil of the temple was rent in twain, the sacrifices were abolished, the priesthood of Aaron was set aside, and carnalordinances were abrogated, for the Spirit revealed spiritual things. When he came who was made a priest, "not after the lawof a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life," there was "a disannulling of the commandment going beforefor the weakness and unprofitableness thereof."

Such are the facts of history; but I am not about to dilate upon them: I am coming to your own personal histories-to the experienceof every child of God. In every one of us it must be fufilled that all that is of the flesh in us, seeing it is but as grass,must be withered, and the comeliness thereof must be destroyed. The Spirit of God, like the wind, must pass over the fieldof our souls, and cause our beauty to be as a fading flower. He must so convince us of sin,and so reveal ourselves to ourselves, that we shall see that the flesh profiteth nothing; that our fallen nature is corruptionitself, and that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God." There must be brought home to us the sentence of death uponour former legal and carnal life, that the incorruptible seed of the word of God, implanted by the Holy Ghost, may be in us,and abide in us for ever.

The subject of this morning is the withering work of the Spirit upon the souls of men, and when we have spoken upon it, weshall conclude with a few words upon the implanting work, which always follows where this withering work has been performed.

I. Turning then to THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN CAUSING THE GOODLINESS OF THE FLESH TO FADE, let us, first, observe that thework of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man in withering up that which is of the flesh, is very unexpected. You will observe in our text, that even the speaker himself, though doubtless one taught of God, when he was bidden to cry,said, "What shall I cry?" Even he did not know that in order to the comforting of God's people, there must first beexperienced a preliminary visitation. Many preachers of God's gospel have forgotten that the law is the schoolmaster tobring men to Christ. They have sown on the unbroken fallow ground and forgotten that the plough must break the clods. We haveseen too much of trying to sew without the sharp needle of the Spirit's convincing power. Preachers have labored to make Christprecious to those who think themselves rich and increased in goods: and it has been labor in vain. It is our duty to preachJesus Christ even to self-righteous sinners, but it is certain that Jesus Christ will never be accepted by them whilethey hold themselves in high esteem. Only the sick will welcome the physician. It is the work of the Spirit of God to convincemen of sin, and until they are convinced of sin, they will never be led to seek the righteousuess which is of God by JesusChrist. I am persuaded, that wherever there is a real work of grace in any soul, it begins with a pulling down: the Holy Ghostdoesnot build on the old foundation. Wood, hay, and stubble will not do for him to build upon. He will come as the fire, andcause a conflagration of all proud nature's Babels. He will break our bow and cut our spear in sunder, and burn our chariotin the fire. When every sandy foundation is gone, then, but not till then, behold he will lay in our souls the great foundationstone, chosen of God, and precious. The awakened sinner, when he asks that God would have mercy upon him, is much astonishedto find that, instead of enjoying a speedy peace, his soul is bowed down within him under a sense of divine wrath. Naturallyenough he enquires: "Is this the answer to my prayer? I prayed the Lord to deliver me from sin and self, and is this the wayin which he deals with me? I said, 'Hear me,' and behold he wounds me with the wounds of a cruel one. I said, 'Clothe me,'and lo! He has torn off from me the few rags which covered me before, and my nakedness stares me in the face. I said, 'Washme,' and behold he has plunged me in the ditch till mine own clothes do abhor me. Is this the way of grace?" Sinner, benot surprised: it is even so. Perceivest thou not the cause of it? How canst thou be healed while the proud flesh is in thywound? It must come out. It is the only way to heal thee permanently: it would be folly to film over thy sore, or heal thyflesh, and leave the leprosy within thy bones. The great physician will cut with his sharp knife till the corrupt flesh beremoved,for only thus can a sure healing work be wrought in thee. Dost thou not see that it is divinely wise that before thouart clothed thou shouldst be stripped! What, wouldst thou have Christ's lustrous righteousness outside whiter than any fullercan make it, and thine own filthy rags concealed within? Nay, man; they must be put away; not a single thread of thine ownmust be left upon thee. It cannot be that God should cleanse thee until he has made thee see somewhat of thy defilement; forthouwouldst never value the precious blood which cleanses us from all sin if thou hadst not first of all been made to mournthat thou art altogether an unclean thing.

The convincing work of the Spirit, wherever it comes, is unexpected, and even to the child of God in whom this process hasstill to go on, it is often startling. We begin again to build that which the Spirit of God had destroyed. Having begun inthe spirit, we act as if we would be made perfect in the flesh; and then when our mistaken upbuilding has to be levelled withthe earth, we are almost as astonished as we were when first the scales fell from our eyes. In some suchcondition as this was Newton when he wrote:-

"I asked the Lord that I might grow

In faith and love and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know,

And seek more earnestly his face.

Twas he who taught me thus to pray,

And he, I trust, has answered prayer;

But it has been in such a way

As almost drove me to despair.

I hop'd that in some favour'd hour,

At once he'd answer my request,

And by his love's constraining power

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, he made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart.

And let the angry powers of hell

Assault my soul in ev'ry part."

Ah, marvel not, for thus the Lord is wont to answer his people. The voice which saith, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,"achieves its purpose by first making them hear the cry, "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flowerof the field."

2. Furthermore, this withering is after the usual order of the divine operation. If we consider well the way of God, we shall not be atonished that he beginneth with his people by terrible things in righteousness.Observe the method of creation. I will not venture upon any dogmatic theory of geology, but there seems to be every probabilitythat this world has been fitted up and destroyed, refitted and then destroyed again, many times before the last arrangingof itfor the habitation of men. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" then came a long interval, and atlength, at the appointed time, during seven days, the Lord prepared the earth for the human race. Consider then the stateof matters when the great architect began his work. What was there in the beginning? Originally, nothing. When he commandedthe ordering of the earth how was it? "The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Therewas notrace of another's plan to interfere with the great architect. "With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, andtaught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding." He received nocontribution of column or pillar towards the temple which he intended to build. The earth was, as the Hebrew puts it, Tohuand Bohu, disorder and confusion-in a word, chaos. So it is in the new creation. When the Lord new creates us, he borrowsnothingfrom the old man, but makes all things new. He does not repair and add a new wing to the old house of our depraved nature,but he builds a new temple for his own praise. We are spiritually without form and empty, and darkness is upon the face ofour heart, and his word comes to us, saying, "Light be," and there is light, and ere long life and every precious thing.

To take another instance from the ways of God. When man has fallen, when did the Lord bring him the gospel? The first whisperof the gospel, as you know, was, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruisethy head." That whisper came to man shivering in the presence of his Maker, having nothing more to say by way of excuse; butstanding guilty before the Lord. When did the Lord God clothe our parents? Not until first of allhe had put the question, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" Not until the fig-leaves had utterly failed did the Lordbring in the covering skin of the sacrifice, and wrap them in it. If you will pursue the meditation upon the acts of God withmen, you will constantly see the same thing. God has given us a wonderful type of salvation in Noah's ark; but Noah was savedin that ark in connection with death; he himself, as it were, immured alive in a tomb, and all the world besides left todestruction. All other hope for Noah was gone, and thee the ark rose upon the waters. Remember the redemption of the childrenof Israel out of Egypt: it occurred when they were in the saddest plight, and their cry went up to heaven by reason of theirbondage. When no arm brought salvation, then with a high hand and an outstretched arm the Lord brought forth his people. Everywherebefore the salvation there comes the humbling of the creature, the overthrow of human hope. As in the back woods ofAmerica before there can be tillage, the planting of cities, the arts of civilization, and the transactions of commerce,the woodman's axe must hack and hew: the stately trees of centuries must fall: the roots must be burned, the odd reign ofnature disturbed. The old must go before the new can come. Even thus the Lord takes away the first, that he may establishthe second. The first heaven and the first earth must pass away, or there cannot be a new heaven and a new earth. Now, asit has beenoutwardly, we ought to expect that it would be the same within us and when these witherings and facings occur in our souls,we should only say "It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth him good."

3. I would have you notice, thirdly, that we are taught in our text how universal this process is in its range over the hearts of all those upon whom the Spirit works. The withering is a withering of what? Of part of the flesh and someportion of its tendencies? Nay, observe, "All flesh is grass; and all the goodliness thereof"-the very choice and pick of it-"is as the flower of the field," and what happens to the grass? Doesany of it live? "Thegrass withereth," all of it. The flower, will not that abide? So fair a thing, has not that an immortality? No, it fades:it utterly falls away. So wherever the Spirit of God breathes on the soul of man, there is a withering of everything thatis of the flesh, and it is seen that to be carnally minded is death. Of course, we all know and confess that where there isa work of grace, there must be a destruction of our delight in the pleasures of the flesh. When the Spirit of God breatheson us,that which was sweet becomes bitter; that which was bright becomes dim. A man cannot love sin and yet possess the lifeof God. If he takes pleasure in fleshly joys wherein he once delighted, he is still what he was: he mince the things of theflesh, and therefore he is after the flesh, and he shall die. The world and the lusts thereof are to the unregenerate as beautifulas the meadows in spring, when they are bedecked with flowers, but to the regenerate soul they are a wilderness, a salt land,and not inhabited. Of those very things wherein we once took delight we say, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." We cryto be delivered from the poisonous joys of earth, we loathe them, and wonder that we could once riot in them. Beloved hearers,do you know what this kind of withering means? Have you seen the lusts of the flesh, and the pomps and the pleasures thereofall fade away before your eyes? It must be so, or the Spirit of God has not visited your soul.

But mark, wherever the Spirit of God comes, he destroys the goodliness and flower of the flesh; that is to say, our righteousnesswithers as our sinfulness. Before the Spirit comes we think ourselves as good as the best. We say, "All these commandmentshave I kept from my youth up," and we superciliously ask, "What lack I yet?" Have we not been moral? Nay, have we not evenbeen religious? We confess that we may have committed faults, but we think them very venial, and weventure, in our wicked pride, to imagine that, after all, we are not so vile as the word of God would lead us to think.Ah, my dear hearer, when the Spirit of God blows on the comeliness of thy flesh, its beauty will fade as a leaf, and thouwilt have quite another idea of thyself thou wilt then find no language too severe in which to describe thy past character.Searching deep into thy motives, and investigating that which moved thee to thine actions, thou wilt see so much of evil,that thouwilt cry with the publican, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

Where the Holy Ghost has withered up in us our self-righteousness, he has not half completed his work; there is much moreto be destroyed yet, and among the rest, away must go our boasted power of resolution. Most people conceive that they canturn to God whenever they resolve to do so. "I am a man of such strength of mind," says one, "that if I made up my mind tobe religious, I should be without difficulty." "Ah," saith another volatile spirit, "I believe that one ofthese days I can correct the errors of the past, and commence a new life." Ah, dear hearers, the resolutions of the fleshare goodly flowers, but they must all fade. When visited by the Spirit of God, we find that even when the will is presentwith us, how to perform that which we would we find not; yea, and we discover that our will is averse to all that is good,and that naturally we will not come unto Christ that we may have life. What poor frail things resolutions are when seen inthe lightof God's Spirit!

Still the man will say, "I believe I have, after all, within myself an enlightened conscience and an intelligence that willguide me aright. The light of nature I will use, and I do not doubt that if I wander somewhat I shall find my way back again."Ah, man! thy wisdom, which is the very flower of thy nature, what is it but folly, though thou knowest it not? Unconvertedand unrenewed, thou art in God's sight no wiser than the wild ass's colt. I wish thou wert in thine ownesteem humbled as a little child at Jesus' feet, and made to cry, "Teach thou me."

When the withering wind of the Spirit moves over the carnal mind, it reveals the death of the flesh in all respects, especiallyin the matter of power towards that which is good. We then learn that word of our Lord: "Without me ye can do nothing." WhenI was seeking the Lord, I not only believed that I could not pray without divine help, but I felt in my very soul that I couldnot. Then I could not even feel aright, or mourn as I would, or groan as I would. I longed tolong more after Christ; but, alas! I could not even feel that I needed him as I ought to feel it. This heart was thenas hard as adamant, as dead as those that rot in their graves. Oh, what would I at times have given for a tear! I wanted torepent, but could not; longed to believe, but could not; I felt bound, hampered, and paralysed. This is a humbling revelationof God's Holy Spirit, but a needful one; for the faith of the flesh is not the faith of God's elect. The faith which justifiesthesoul is the gift of God and not of ourselves. That repentance which is the work of the flesh will need to be repentedof. The flower of the flesh must wither; only the seed of the Spirit will produce fruit unto perfection. The heirs of heavenare born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God. If the work in us be not the Spirit's working,but our own, it will droop and die when most we require its protection; and its end will be as the grass which to-day is,andtomorrow is cast into the oven.

4. You see, then, the universality of this withering work within us, but I beg you also to notice the completeness of it. The grass, what does it do? Droop? nay, wither. The dower of the field: what of that? Does it hang its head a little? No,according to Isaiah it fades; and according to Peter it falleth away. There is no reviving it with showers, it has come toits end. Even thus are the awakened led to see that in their flesh there dwelleth no good thing. Whatdying and withering work some of God's servants have had in their souls! Look at John Bunyan, as he describes himselfin his "Grace Abounding!" For how many months and even years was the Spirit engaged in writing death upon all that was theold Bunyan, in order that he might become by grace a new man fitted to track the pilgrims along their heavenly way. We havenot all endured the ordeal so long, but in every child of God there must be a death to sin, to the law, and to self, whichmust befully accomplished ere he is perfected in Christ and taken to heaven. Corruption cannot inherit incorruption; it is throughthe Spirit that we mortify the deeds of the body, and therefore live. But cannot the fleshly mind be improved? By no means;for "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Cannot you improvethe old nature? No; "ye must be born again." Can it not be taught heavenly things? No. "The natural man receiveth not thethings of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spirituallydiscerned." There is nothing to be done with the old nature but to let it be laid in the grave; it must be dead, and buried,and when it is so, then the incorruptible seed that liveth and abideth for ever will develop gloriously, the fruit of thenew birth will come to maturity, and grace shall be exalted in glory. The old nature never does improve, it is as earthly,andsensual, and devilish in the saint of eighty years of age as it was when first he came to Christ; it is unimproved andunimprovable; towards God it is enmity itself: every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is evil, and that continually.The old nature called "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary theone to the other," neither can there be peace between them.

5. Let us further notice that all this withering work in the soul is very painful. As you read these verses do they not strike you as having a very funereal tone? "All flesh is grass, and all the goodlinessthereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth." This is mournful work, but it must be done.I think those who experience much of it when they first come to Christ have great reason to be thankful. Their course in lifewill, in allprobability, be much brighter and happier, for I have noticed that persons who are converted very easily, and come toChrist with but comparatively little knowledge of their own depravity, have to learn it afterwards, and they remain for along time babes in Christ, and are perplexed with masters that would not have troubled them if they had experienced a deeperwork at first. No, sir; if grace has begun to build in your soul and left any of the old walls of self-trust standing, theywill haveto come down sooner or later. You may congratulate yourself upon their remaining, but it is a false congratulation, yourglorying is not good. I am sure of this, that Christ will never put a new piece upon an old garment, or new wine in old bottles:he knows the rent would be worse in the long run, and the bottles would burst. All that is of nature's spinning must be unravelled.The natural building must come down, lath and plaster, roof and foundation, and we must have a house not made withhands. It was a great mercy for our city of London that the great fire cleared away all the old buildings which were thelair of the plague, a far healthier city was then built; and it is a great mercy for a man when God sweeps right away allhis own righteousness and strength, when he makes him feel that he is nothing and can be nothing, and drives him to confessthat Christ must be all in all, and that his only strength lies in the eternal might of the ever-blessed Spirit. Sometimesin ahouse of business an old system has been going on for years, and it has caused much confusion, and allowed much dishonesty.You come in as a new manager, and you adopt an entirely new plan. Now, try if you can, and graft your method on to the oldsystem. How it will worry you! Year after year you say to yourself, "I cannot work it: if I had swept the whole away and startedafresh, clear from the beginning, it would not have given me one-tenth of the trouble." God does not intend to graft thesystem of grace upon corrupt nature, nor to make the new Adam grow out of the old Adam, but he intends to teach us this:"Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Salvation is not of the flesh but of the Lord alone; that which isborn of the flesh is only flesh at the best; and only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. It must be the Spirit'swork altogether, or it is not what God will accept.

Observe, brethren, that although this is painful it is inevitable. I have already entrenched upon this, and shown you how necessary it is that all of the old should be taken away; but letme further remark that it is inevitable that the old should go, because it is in itself corruptible. Why does the grass wither?Because it is a withering thing. "Its root is ever in its we, and it must die." How could it spring out of the earth, andbe immortal? It is no amaranth:it blooms not in Paradise: it grows in a soil on which the curse has fallen. Every supposed good thing that grows outof your own self, is like yourself, mortal, and it must die. The seeds of corruption are in all the fruits of manhood's tree;let them be as fair to look upon as Eden's clusters, they must decay.

Moreover, it would never do, my brother, that there should be something of the flesh in our salvation and something of theSpirit; for if it were so there would be a division of the honor. Hitherto the praises of God; beyond this my own praises.If I were to win heaven partly through what I had done, and partly through what Christ had done, and if the energy which sanctifiedme was in a measure my own, and in a measure divine, they that divide the work shall divide thereward, and the songs of heaven while they would be partly to Jehovah must also be partly to the creature. But it shallnot be. Down, proud flesh! Down! I say. Though thou cleanse and purge thyself as thou mayst, thou art to the core corruptthough thou labor unto weariness, thou buildest wood that will be burned, and stubble that will be turned to ashes. Give upthine own self-confidence, and let the work be, and the merit be where the honor shall be, namely, with God alone. It is inevitable,then, that there should be all this withering.

7. This last word by way of comfort to any that are passing through the process we are describing, and I hope some of youare. It gives me great joy when I hear that you unconverted ones are very miserable, for the miseries which the Holy Spiritworks are always the prelude to happiness. It is the Spirit's work to wither. I rejoice in our translation, "Because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." It is true the passage may be translated,"The wind of the Lordbloweth upon it." One word, as you know, is used in the Hebrew both for "wind" and "Spirit," and the same is true of theGreek; but let us retain the old translation here, for I conceive it to be the real meaning of the text. The Spirit of Godit is that withers the flesh. It is not the devil that killed my self-righteousness. I might be afraid if it were: nor wasit myself that humbled myself by a voluntary and needless self-degradation, but it was the Spirit of God. Better to be brokeninpieces by the Spirit of God, than to be made whole by the flesh! What doth the Lord say? "I kill." But what next? "I makealive." He never makes any alive but those he kills. Blessed be the Holy Ghost when he kills me, when he drives the swordthrough the very bowels of my own merits and myself-confidence, for then he will make me alive. "I wound, and I heal." Henever heals those whom he has not wounded. Then blessed be the hand that wounds; let it go on wounding; let it cut and tear;let itlay bare to me myself at my very worst, that I may be driven to self-despair, and may fall back upon the free mercy ofGod, and receive it as a poor, guilty, lost, helpless, undone sinner, who casts himself into the arms of sovereign grace,knowing that God must give all, and Christ must be all, and the Spirit must work all, and man must be as clay in the potter'shands, that the Lord may do with him as seemeth trim good. Rejoice, dear brother, how ever low you are brought, for if theSpirithumbles you he means no evil, but he intends infinite good to your soul.

II. Now, let us close with a few sentences concerning THE IMPLANTATION.

According to Peter, although the flesh withers, and the flower thereof falls away, yet in the children of God there is anunwithering something of another kind. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God,which liveth and abideth for ever." "The word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preachedunto you." Now, the gospel is of use to us because it is not of human origin. If it were of theflesh, all it could do for us would not land us beyond the flesh; but the gospel of Jesus Christ is super-human, divine,and spiritual. In its conception it was of God; its great gift, even the Savior, is a divine gift; and all its teachings arefull of deity. If you, my hearer, believe a gospel which you have thought out for yourself, or a philosophical gospel whichcomes from the brain of man, it is of the flesh, and will wither, and you will die, and be lost through trusting in it. Theonlyword that can bless you and be a seed in your soul must be the living and incorruptible word of the eternal Spirit. Nowthis is the incorruptible word, that "God was made flesh and dwelt among us;" that "God was in Christ, reconciling the worldunto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." This is the incorruptible word, that "Whosoever believeth that Jesusis the Christ is born of God." "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already,because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." "God hath given to us eternal life, and thislife is in his Son." Now, brethren, this is the seed; but before it can grow in your soul, it must be planted there by theSpirit. Do you receive it this morning? Then the Holy Spirit implants it in your soul. Do you leap up to it, and say, "I believeit! I grasp it! On the incarnate God I fix my hope; the substitutionary sacrifice, the complete atonement of Christ is allmyconfidence; I am reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus." Then you possess the living seed within your soul.

And what is the result of it? Why, then there comes, according to the text, a new life into us, as the result of the indwellingof the living word, and our being born again by it. A new life it is; it is not the old nature putting out its better parts;not the old Adam refining and purifying itself, and rising to something better. No; have we not said aforetime that the fleshwithers and the flower thereof fades? It is an entirely new life. Ye are as much new creatures atyour regeneration, as if you had never existed, and had been for the first time created. "Old things are passed away;behold, all things are become new." The child of God is beyond and above other men. Other men do not possess the life whichhe has received. They are but duplex-body and soul have they. He is of triple nature-he is spirit, soul, and body. A freshprinciple, a spark of the divine life has dropped into his soul; he is no longer a natural or carnal man, but he has becomeaspiritual man, understanding spiritual things and possessing a life far superior to anything that belongs to the restof mankind. O that God, who has withered in the souls of any of you that which is of the flesh, may speedily grant you thenew birth through the Word.

Now observe, to close, wherever this new life comes through the word, it is incorruptible, it lives and abides for ever. Toget the good seed out of a true believer's heart and to destroy the new nature in him, is a thing attempted by earth and hell,but never yet achieved. Pluck the sun out of the firmament, and you shall not even then be able to pluck grace out of a regenerateheart. It "liveth and abideth for ever," saith the text; it neither can corrupt of itself norbe corrupted. "It sinneth not, because it is born of God." "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springingup into everlasting life." You have a natural life-that will die, it is of the flesh. You have a spiritual life-of that itis written: "'Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." You have now within you the noblest and truestimmortality: you must live as God liveth, in peace and joy, and happiness. But oh, remember, dear hearer, if you havenot this you "shall not see life." What then-shall you be annihilated? Ah! no, but "the wrath of the Lord is upon you." Youshall exist, though you shall not live. Of life you shall know nothing, for that is the gift of God in Christ Jesus; but ofan everlasting death, full of torment and anguish, you shall be the wretched heritor-"the wrath of God abideth on him." Youshallbe cast into "the lake of fire, which is the second death." You shall be one of those whose "worm dieth not, and whosefire is not quenched." May God, the ever-blessed Spirit, visit you! If he be now striving with you, O quench not his divineflame! Trifle not with any holy thought you have. If this morning you must confess that you are not born again, be humbledby it. Go and seek mercy of the Lord, entreat him to deal graciously with you and save you. Many who have had nothing butmoonlighthave prized it, and ere long they have had sunlight. Above all, remember what the quickening seed is, and reverence itwhen you hear it preached, "for this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." Respect it, and receive it. Rememberthat the quickening seed is all wrapped up in this sentence: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.""He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Isaiah 40:1-11; Luke 3:1-17; and 1 Peter 1:17-25.