Sermon 1418. The Holdfast
(No. 1418)
DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 9, 1878,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is your life." Proverbs 4:13.
FAITH may be well described as taking hold upon Divine instruction. God has condescended to teach us and it is ours to hearwith attention and receive His words. And while we are hearing, faith comes, even that faith which saves the soul. To take"fast hold" is an exhortation which concerns the strength, the reality, the heartiness and the truthfulness of faith-and themore of these the better. If to take hold is good, to take fast hold is better! Even a touch of the hem of Christ's garmentcauses healing to come to us, but if we want the full riches which are treasured up in Christ, we must not only touch buttake hold. And if we would know from day to day the very uttermost of the fullness of His Grace, we must take fast hold andso maintain a constant and close connection between our souls and the eternal Fountain of Life.
It were well to give such a grip as a man gives to a plank when he seizes hold of it for his very life-that is a fast hold,indeed! We are to take fast hold of instruction and the best of instruction is that which comes from God. The truest wisdomis the Revelation of God in Christ Jesus-of that, therefore, we are to take fast hold. The best understanding is obedienceto the will of God and a diligent learning of those saving Truths which God has set before us in His Word so that, in effect,we are exhorted to take hold of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Incarnate Wisdom in whom dwells all the treasures of wisdom andknowledge. We are not to let Him go, but to keep Him and hold Him, for He is our life.
Does not John, in his Gospel, tell us that the Word is our light or instruction and at the same time our life? "In Him waslife, and the life was the light of men." The more we abide in the Lord Jesus and the more firmly we take hold upon Him, thebetter will it be for us in a thousand ways. I intend at this time to speak, as the Holy Spirit shall enable me, upon thisfast hold and I reckon that the subject is one of the most important which can occupy your attention at this particular crisisin the history of the Church.
Many there are around us who believe in Christ, but it is with a very trembling faith. Their hold is unsteady! We need tohave among us men of tighter grip who really believe what they profess to believe. We need men who know the Truth in its livingpower and are persuaded of its certainty so that they cannot, by any means, be moved from their steadfastness. Among the vacillatingcrowd we long to see fast-holders who are pillars in the House of our God, whose grasp of Divine Truth is not that of babiesor boys, but of men full grown and vigorous! We shall handle our subject by speaking, first, upon the method by which we maytake fast hold. Then upon the difficulties which will lie in our way in so doing. Thirdly, upon the benefits of such a firmgrasp. And, lastly, upon the arguments for our holding fast mentioned in the text.
I. First, then, THE METHOD of taking fast hold upon true religion, upon the Gospel-in fact-upon Christ. At the outset, myBrothers and Sisters, much must depend upon the intense decision which a man feels in his soul with regard to eternal things.If he intends trifling, he will trifle, but if he means taking fast hold he will, by God's Grace, do so. Under God, this,in many cases, depends very much upon a man's individuality and force of character. Some men are naturally thorough and whole-heartedin all things upon which they enter, whether of this world or the next. When they serve the devil they are among his lifeguardsand they rush to the front in all kinds of iniquity. Among sinners they become the chief, for they have no fear and no hesitancy-theyare daredevils, defying both God and man-sinning greedily with both hands.
Such men, when converted, often become eminent saints, being just as thorough and resolute in their following after God asthey were in the pursuit of evil! They are determined to vindicate His holy cause and spread abroad the knowledge of His love.I must confess an earnest longing that many such may be brought into the Church of Christ at this time to
brace her up and inspire her with new energy. Many in our Churches appear to have no depth of earth. With joy they receivethe Word of God, from the very fact that they are so shallow, but as soon as the sun rises with burning heat, it is discoveredthat they have no root, for they wither away. Others are truly religious and probably will remain so, but they are not zealous.In fact, they are not intense about anything, but are lukewarm, weak and unstable. These are mere chips in the porridge, neithersour nor sweet-they give forth no flavor-they take the flavor of that which surrounds them.
They are the creatures of circumstances, not helmsmen who avail themselves of stream and tide, but mere driftwood carriedalong by any and every current which may take hold of them. They have no fullness of manhood about them, they are mere children.They resemble the sapling which can be bent and twisted and not the oak which defies the storm. There are certain personsof this sort who in other matters have purpose enough and strength of mind enough, but when they touch the things of God,they are loose, flimsy, superficial, half-hearted. You see them earnest enough in hunting after wealth, but they show no suchzeal in the pursuit of godliness! The force of their character comes out in a political debate, in the making of a bargain,in the arrangement of a social gathering-but you never see it in the work of the Lord. The young man comes to the front asa volunteer, or as a member of a club, or in the house of business-but who ever hears of him in Sunday school, the PrayerMeeting, or the home mission? In the things of God such persons owe any measure of progress which they make to the influenceof their fellows who bear them along as so much dead weight! They, themselves, never throw enough weight into the matter toadd a single half-ounce of spiritual power to the Church!
Now, all this is mischievous and wrong. My dear Friends, we must all confess that if the religion of Christ is true, it deservesthat we should give our whole selves to it. If it is a lie, let it be eradicated from creation! But if it is true, it is amatter concerning which we cannot be neutral or lukewarm, for it demands our soul, our life, our all-and its claim cannotbe denied. There must be a determination worked in our souls by the Holy Spirit to be upright and downright in the work ofthe Lord or else we shall be of little worth. We come, however, to closer matters of fact when we observe, next, that ourtaking fast hold of the things of God must depend upon the thoroughness of our conversion. In this Church we try, as far aswe can, in receiving Church members, to receive none but those who give clear evidence of a change of heart.
But this evidence can be imitated so skillfully that the best examination and the most earnest judgment cannot prevent self-deceivedpersons from making a profession of religion. This we cannot help, but woe to those who willfully deceive! Many exhibit flowersand fruits which never grew in their own gardens. Their experience is borrowed and does not spring from the essential rootof the Holy Spirit's work within their souls. This is sad, indeed. Our condition before God is a personal matter and can neverbe settled by the judgment of our fellows, for what can others know of the workings of our hearts? Each man must judge himselfand examine himself, for whatever a Church may attempt in its zeal for purity, it can never take the responsibility of hisown sincerity from any man. We do not pretend to give certificates of salvation! If we did, they would be worthless-you must,yourselves, know the Lord and be really converted or else your profession is a forgery and you are counterfeits.
If a man shall, in later life, hold fast to the things of God, he must be soundly converted at first. Very much of his laterlife depends upon the thoroughness of his beginning. There must at the very first be a deep sense of sin, a consciousnessof guilt, a holy horror of evil, or he will never make much of a Christian. I do not say that all or even any of those doubtsand temptations and Satanic suggestions which some have had to struggle with are necessary to make a true conversion. ButI must confess that I am not at all displeased when I meet with a good deal of battling and struggling in the experience ofthe newly awakened. It is not pleasant for them, but we hope it will be profitable. Those whose souls are plowed and plowedand plowed again before the seed is sown upon them often yield the best crop.
John Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding," very much accounts for John Bunyan's, "Pilgrim's Progress." If it had not been for his terribleconflicts of soul, he might not have known how to hold fast to his confidence when shut up for 12 years in prison. Nor wouldhe have seen visions of the Celestial City, when all around him was as the valley of the shadow of death! I do not wish tosee seeking souls distressed by Satan, but I do press for this-that there shall be an end of self-trust, a total destructionof self- righteousness, a complete giving up of all legal and carnal hopes. If not, the conversion will be a mere show andhe who is the subject of it will be like Ephraim-a silly dove without a heart. Unless repentance of sin is real in you, youwill never take fast hold of the Truth of God.
And there must be, dear Friends, a very sincere laying hold upon Christ Jesus. If you have any doubt about the doctrine ofAtonement, I am not surprised if your religion soon wears into shreds. No, you must, without question, accept the SubstitutionarySacrifice. Your soul must feel that the precious blood is her only hope-that this, and this alone-can make her clean beforethe living God! You must fly to Christ in desperation and cling to Him as all your salvation and all your desire-there canbe no hesitancy here. At the very outset of the Christian life these two things should be very distinct with you-sin whichhas ruined you and Christ who has saved you! Make a muddle at first and your life will be a tangle.
Some tradesmen never carry on their business well. They evidently do not more than half understand it and are mere bunglers.Now, if you come to enquire, you will find that they were never thoroughly grounded in their calling. Either they never servedan apprenticeship, or else they were lazy lads and never became masters of their trade. This bad commencement sticks to themall their lives. It is the same with the higher learning. A man may go a long way in the classics, but if he is not groundedin the grammar, he will be everlastingly making mistakes which a sound scholar will soon discover. Every teacher must workhard at the elements if his pupils are to succeed. Whatever you do with the higher forms, do teach that little boy his grammarand ground him in the rudiments or he will be injured for life.
To borrow another illustration, we have heard of a bridge which spanned a stream and for some years stood well enough, but,by-and- by, through the force of the current, it began to show signs of giving way. When it came to be examined it was soonseen that the builders never went deep enough with the foundations. There is the mischief of thousands of other things besidesbridges! We must have good and deep foundations, or otherwise the higher we build, the sooner the fabric will fall. Look atmany of the wretched houses in the streets around us-they are the disgrace of the city-you will see settlements and crackseverywhere because of bad foundations and bad materials. The same is true in the characters of many professed Christians-forlack of a good commencement you can see innumerable flaws and cracks-and you wonder that they do not come down in sudden ruin!
So indeed they would, but, like those wretched houses, they hold one another up! Many professors only keep upright becausethey stand in a row and derive support from their associations. I wish we could see more Christian men of the sort who dareto stand alone, like those old family mansions which stand, each one in its own garden, so well built that when we begin totake them down, each brick is found to be solid as granite and the mortar is as hard as a rock. Such buildings and such menbecome more rare every day-we must come back to the old style-and the sooner the better! Those of you who are yet in the earlydays of your piety should see to this. See that you are right, sound and thorough-and take fast hold of the Truth of God inthe days of your first love, or yours will be but a sickly life in years to come.
This being taken for granted, the next help to a fast hold of Christ is hearty discipleship. Brothers and Sisters, as soonas you are converted, you become the disciples of Jesus! And if you are to become fast-holding Christians you must acknowledgeHim to be your Master, Teacher and Lord in all things! You must resolve to be good scholars in His school. He will be thebest Christian who has Christ for His Master and truly follows Him. Some are disciples of the Church, others are disciplesof the minister and a third sort are disciples of their own thoughts. He is the wise man who sits at Jesus' feet and learnsof Him with the resolve to follow His teaching and imitate His example. He who tries to learn of Jesus, Himself, taking thevery words from our Lord's own lips, binding himself to believe whatever the Lord has taught and to do whatever He has commanded-he,I say, is the stable Christian!
Follow Jesus, my Brothers and Sisters, and not the Church, for our Lord has never said to His disciples, "Follow your Brethren,"but He has said, "Follow Me." He has not said, "Abide by the denominational confession," but He has said, "Abide in Me." Nothingmust come between our souls and our Lord! What if fidelity to Jesus should sometimes lead us to differ from our Brethren?What does it matter so long as we do not differ from our Master? Crochets and quibbles are evil things, but a keenly sensitiveconscientiousness is invaluable. Be true disciples of Christ and let His least Word be precious to you! Remember that if aman loves Him, he will keep His Commandments. He has said, "He that shall break one of the least of these, My Commandments,and shall teach men so, the same shall be least in the kingdom of Heaven." Shun all compromises and abatements of the Truth!Be thorough and determined, holding fast your Savior's Words! Follow the Lamb where ever He goes! If such is your resolve,by the Grace of God, you will take fast hold of instruction and will never let it go.
It will help you to do this if, in the next place, you have a studious consideration of the Word of God and meditate muchupon the Truth which you have received. I am persuaded there is too little studying of the Scriptures nowadays. Books, magazines,papers and the like, bury the Bible under heaps of rubbish, but he who means to be a man of God to the fullness of his manhoodwill feed upon the Word of God at first hand. Like the Bereans, he will be of a noble spirit and he will search the Scripturesdaily. "I want," says he, "to obtain my creed, not secondhand from others, but directly for myself from the very Word of Goditself-the pure well of undefiled Gospel." This is a very important point. I have heard often, of late, a misused expression-"Ido my own thinking." Let us correct it and then adopt it by saying, "I do my own searching of the Word of God."
Remember, we are not called to think out a new Gospel, as some imagine, but we are called to be thinkers upon the old Gospel,that we may know and understand its principles and its bearings and become confirmed in the belief of it. We need to thinkover the Word of God till we are thoroughly permeated with it. The silk of certain insects takes its color from the leaveson which they feed-and a Christian's life will always take its color from that which his soul feeds upon. Oh, to live uponthe Word of God, even upon the deep things of God, for so shall we be rooted and grounded in the faith and shall take fasthold of eternal wisdom! An established Christian is one who not only knows the doctrines, but who also knows the authorityfor it, having looked around it and pondered it in his heart. By careful meditation he is taught in the Truth of God and isable to give a reason for the hope that is in him with meekness and fear.
Nor is he merely a man of the letter-his study in the power of the Holy Spirit has carried him into the essence of the Word.He has asked the Spirit of God to make him acquainted with Divine Truth so that he has not only read it, but he has communedwith it and now lives upon it, eats it, drinks it, receives it into the inward parts of his soul and retains it there as aliving and incorruptible seed! A man who does this year after year is the kind of man who, by God's Grace, will take fasthold of instruction and will prove a faithful witness for his Lord. Add to this, also, an earnest seriousness of characterand you go a long way towards maintaining a fast hold of Christ. We do not mean, by this, that we are to dismiss cheerfulness-maythe Lord give us more of it, for it is as oil to wheels and is a high recommendation of religion to the unconverted. Thereare some who are a deal too gloomy in their religion and seem to think that the Grace of God is never displayed by them unlessthey are sullen and doleful.
But at the same time there is a flippancy which is not commendable and a levity which is far from the mind of Christ! Christianlife is not child's play. We, above all men, ought to make our lives sublime and not ridiculous. We are not called into thisworld to trifle away the hours and kill time in doing nothing, for this life links itself to eternity and that eternity, inspite of all that is said to the contrary, will be one of endless misery or of endless joy! It is, therefore, no small thingto possess an immortal mind and to be responsible before God. Sin is no trifle, pardon is no trifle and condemnation is notrifle! Eternal life is precious beyond all things, but to lie under the wrath of God is dreadful beyond conception! I loveto see, especially in young Christians, with regard to the things of God, deep seriousness of purpose and spirit, showingthat they feel it to be a weighty thing to be a Christian and that they cannot afford to have their Christianity put underthe shadow of suspicion, nor dare they appear to be mere players upon a stage, for they fear and tremble at His Word.
Now, if all these things are in you and abound, there will grow around them an experimental verification of the things ofGod. I mean that you will not only read of the love of God, but you will feel it from day to day and so be assured of it.You read in the Scriptures of the power of sin and you believe what you read-but to this will be added the confirmatory factthat you feel it in your members and, therefore, cannot doubt it! You read of the efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus-butyou do more, for you feel its cleansing power upon your heart and its consoling influence over your conscience-and so youare established in the blessed Truth of God! We hardly know anything till we have lived it! You must get the Truth of Godburnt into you with the hot iron of experience, or you will forget it.
I believe that the pains and grief and afflictions of many of God's children have been absolutely necessary to establish themin the faith. And I can only hope that you who are the children of joy may derive as much benefit from your gladness as mournershave found in their sorrows-it might be so and should be so-but I fear it seldom is. The whole of our life should be a dailytesting of the Gospel and a continuous verification of the eternal Truth thereof. Our life should agree with this Book ofLife-just as the book of Nature, being written by the same Author as the Book of Revelation, shows the same hand and style-sothe book of the new creation within us, being inscribed by the same Spirit who has
written these Scriptures, will display the same style and manner. And we shall thus be growingly assured of the things whichare verily revealed to us by God.
Go on, dear Friends, and may the Lord grant that whatever your experience may be, whether it shall abound in bitterness orin sweetness, the testimony of God may be confirmed in you and your grip of it may be intensified by every year's experience.I must add one other word. I believe that in the mode of taking fast hold upon the Gospel, practical Christianity has a greatinfluence. I refer especially to practical usefulness. Some members enter the Church and never do a hand's turn. We have thedistinguished privilege of seeing them sit in their pews and that is all we know about them. We cannot bring them under Churchcensure, for they are punctual in religious observances-but they are barren limbs. Give me the young man who, when he joinsthe Church, says, "I shall take a little time to study the Gospel till I know more of it by the teaching of God's Spirit."And then, having done so, says, "I have not learned this for myself. There is something for me to do in connection with theChurch of God and I am determined to find out what it is and to do it."
You see such a young Believer teaching in Sunday school, or you find him beginning to speak in a cottage, or becoming a visitorand seeking to speak personally to individuals about their souls. If he is a man of the right kind, his work will be anotherholdfast to his mind. Look at him, how he keeps to the Gospel-how he clings to the old, old Truth of God! He is not the manto run after new theories and modern doubts, for he is helped to keep right by his practical connection with spiritual diseaseand its remedy. Go into the back slums of London and see if you will doubt the doctrine of Human Depravity! Oh no, it is yourladies and gentlemen that wear lavender kid gloves who doubt that doctrine! Try to rescue a harlot from her sin and if youare enabled to lead her to Jesus, you cannot doubt the power of the precious blood of Jesus to cleanse the heart!
Not those who battle with vice, but those who practice it, themselves, are the ones who quibble at the doctrine of the Atonement.Those who are busy plucking brands out of the fire are little given to speculation, but are firm abiders in the Gospel. Ithink there are few exceptions to the rule that the "advanced thought" gentlemen are not engaged in practical work for thesalvation of souls. They are grand talkers, but very poor workers. I am not hypercritical when I say that if you will mentiona "modern thought" professor, it will generally turn out that he is not worth his salt as to practical usefulness-not he-hehas the parrot faculty of pulling things to pieces, but what positive work has he ever done? He may be a distinguished dignitaryor a noble scholar, but as to actually grappling with the hearts and consciences of men and entering into the dark and troublousexperience of tempted souls, he is quite at sea, for he knows nothing about it!
He would talk after another fashion if his hands had ever been laid to hard work among sinful men and afflicted consciences!I tell you, Sirs, that to argue with a poor distressed conscience and to try to bring it to peace in Christ soon lets youknow the truth of the Gospel! To stand by a dying bed and hear the holy triumph of even the most illiterate of the childrenof God, or what is equally efficacious, to watch the last sad hours of an impenitent sinner dying without hope-will make youknow that there is a world to come, joyful or terrible as the case may be-and you will also learn that sin is a great eviland that the Atonement is a great reality!
Young convert, if you want to be one of the firm holders of the Gospel, you must get to work as well as to study, for this,by the overruling power of the Holy Spirit, will strengthen you in the faith of God's elect! Thus I have brought forward themethod, may it prove to be instructive.
II. Very briefly, I want, now, to show THE DIFFICULTIES of taking fast hold of instruction. And every difficulty I mentionwill tend to show, all the more clearly, the necessity of it. The first difficulty is that this is the age of questioning.Everybody questions! Our friends over in Germany have pushed the questioning business to the furthest point and in their thoroughway they have produced its legitimate fruit in cold-blooded attempts to murder a venerable monarch. Professed ministers ofthe Gospel have taught the German mind to doubt everything-and now the basis of society is shaken and law and order are undermined.What could they expect otherwise? He who does not fear God is not likely to honor their king!
When men give up their Bibles, they will care but little for human laws. We have plenty of the same evil here in England andcertain clergymen and dissenting divines are spreading it with hideous industry! Young gentlemen, whose whiskers have notyet developed, are authoritatively deciding that nothing can be decided and dogmatically denouncing all dogmas! We meet themevery day and we notice that in proportion to their ignorance is their confidence in sneering at every holy thing! Accordingto them, nobody is sincere, nothing is sacred. These great men, who would never have been
heard of if they had not been heretical, know better by far than God Himself! As for Apostles and Prophets, they are justnothing at all to these infallibles! Their own "thought" is more precious than Inspiration itself! This conceited skepticismis in the air-it seems to be everywhere and you cannot help encountering it-therefore let us be the more earnest to hold fastthe faith!
Worse than this, this is an age of worldliness. Everybody wants to be rich and nobody is rich now at the point at which hisforefathers were content to stop! Our good old deacons and respected Church members were content with very moderate incomes.They were satisfied and happy with thrift and prudence and would have been deeply grieved with the extravagance which is seenon all sides at this time. They not only considered their shops and their fields, but they planned to have time to look afterthe Sunday schools in which they were proud to serve and the Prayer Meetings which they delighted to attend. But, dear me,Prayer Meetings, lectures, sermons, Sunday schools-these are all despised, now! If a man can make an extra guinea or two byputting himself where they are out of the question, he jumps at the chance!
We must be rich, we must cut a dash, we must spend more than our neighbors and for this the work of the Church may go to thedogs! Oh for a few simple, earnest Christians who will judge their Lord and His cause to be worth some consideration and willlay themselves out to serve His Church! When worldliness is so predominant, it becomes so much the harder to take fast holdof eternal things! One needs to hear the Word of God, "Seek you, first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and allthese things shall be added unto you." Unless we hear it, we shall be tempted to take fast hold on the world and let the thingsof eternity slip by us!
Then, besides this, there is and always has been a great desire for novelty. We are all the subjects of it. We all like somethingfresh. But there are some who are sick of the changeable disease-you see them zealots for a creed today, but all of a suddenyou find them deeply immersed in the opposite teaching! Ah, now they have discovered something very wonderful-just as theidiot who saw the rainbow and believed that there was a pot of gold at the end of it and ran for miles to seize a glitteringsapphire and grasped a piece of glass bottle-so they forever pursue and never attain! We have a few of these gentlemen inmost of our Churches, but you will find them nowhere very long! Another inventor starts a new system and away they go-piningalways to be the first disciples of each new prophet! May God save us from the Athenian spirit which forever hungers for somethingnew!
Another difficulty, and the worst of all, is the corruption of our own hearts. "Take fast hold of instruction," says the text."Why," I hear a Brother say, "my dear Sir, sometimes it is as much as I can do to take hold of it at all. I have to questionwhether I have been converted! I go down into such depths of despondency that unless the Truth of God holds me, I shall neverhold it." Well, but I hope this is all a means of helping you to hold it all the more firmly! You now see that salvation mustbe by Grace from first to last! By this very process you will be compelled to hold the Doctrines of Grace the more intensely,because you are made to see how utterly unable you are, in and of yourself, to think a good thought, much less to remain steadfastin the whole Truth of Christ!
And then there is Satan, too-how busy he is in trying to undermine the fundamentals of the faith! Has he not suggested tosome of us all kind of doubts? Yes. I said to a man, one day, who had uttered some blasphemy in my presence against a certainTruth of God, "You think you stagger me? My dear Man, I have had more doubts pass through my thoughts than you could tellme, or 50 like you!" The doubts which the devil insinuates into the minds of the people of God are at times quite as horribleas any which a Voltaire or a Tom Paine was ever able to invent! And yet, by God's Grace, we have not given up the Gospel,nor shall we though Heaven and earth shall pass away! Because we are one with Christ we shall live in the Truth of Christ,for He will keep and preserve us even to the end.
III. Thirdly, let us consider THE BENEFITS of taking fast hold. I wish I had an hour in which to dilate upon the benefit ofso doing, but I must briefly say that it gives stability to the Christian character to have a firm grip of the Gospel. Menwho take fast hold are the backbone of a Church. All through the dark reign of moderates in Scotland, who kept up the testimonyfor the Truth of God? Why, those solid Christians who were known as, "the men," who held the faith and walked with God inthe power of it. These were men much in prayer and much in meditation. They lived on when all sound teaching had left thepulpits! Their souls were sustained by secret communion with God on the hillside. When the time came for the pure Truth ofGod to revive in Scotland, these men came to the front and were honored as the men who had kept the flame alive in the land.
What was it that delivered our country, in still earlier times, from being altogether under the hoof of Rome? When prelatesforsook Christ and preachers by the hundreds in Mary's day turned from Protestantism to Popery, the true faith lived on inthe hearts of poor men and women-weavers and cobblers who believed what they did believe and could not deny the Truth of God.Everybody in the parish knew them as the, "stubborn heretics," who could not be frightened or argued down! They knew. Theywere sure. They were confident and, therefore, they spoke. It did not matter to them that they were in a minority, for theyknew that a minority of one, on God's side, is a majority!
"I, Athanasius, against the world," said that grand old confessor when they told him everybody had gone over to Arianism andthat nobody believed in the Deity of Christ! "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved. I bear up the pillarsof it," said one of old-and happy is that man to whom such an office is given! A firm grip of the Gospel will give you strengthfor service. The man who can "hold the fort," at one time, is the very man who can capture a fort at another! He who can standwell can march well! The hands of the Church are made of the same material as its backbone! It is of no use sending poor hesitatingprofessors into the field of holy labor. If you hardly know what you believe, how can you teach other people? But when theTruth of God is written upon your very soul and engraved as with the point of a diamond upon your heart-you will speak withconfidence and there will be a power about your utterances which none shall be able to withstand or deny!
For the sake, then, of your spiritual strength, I press the exhortation of the text, "Take fast hold of instruction." Andthis, too, will bring you joy. The outskirts of our Jerusalem are dreary-her Glory lies within. Where shines the brightestlight? It is in the Holy of Holies in the innermost shrine! The skin and husks of religion are poor things, but the juice,the life, the vital power of religion-therein lies the sweetness! You must not be satisfied with the "name to live"-it willnever comfort you-it will even distress you. The life of Christ mightily developed in you must be the joy of your heart! Multitudesof Christian professors get next to nothing out of Christianity. How can they? They hold their religion as some rich farmershold "off-hand farms." Nobody ever makes anything out of off-hand farms-the man who makes farming pay lives on the spot andgives his whole time and energy to it!
So is it in the things of God! If you make your minister your bailiff in religion, you will get nothing out of it. You mustlive in it and upon it-and then you will prosper! I want you to say, "If there is anything in godliness I am going to knowit. If prayer has power I am going to pray. If there is such a thing as communion with God I will enjoy it! If there is sucha thing as likeness to Christ I will obtain it. Godliness shall not be an addition to my life, but it shall be my life itself."Ah, Brothers and Sisters, then you are the man of the shining countenance, you are the man of the sparkling eyes! You drinkdeep and you find that the deeper you drink the sweeter the draught becomes!
Lastly, with regard to this summary of benefits-persons of this kind are the very Glory of the Church-they are the personsin whom true religion displays its brightest beams! They may be humble cottagers, or obscure members of a large Church whoare scarcely known. But those who live with them-those who are at all acquainted with them, say of them-"These men and womenare a credit to the Church and an honor to the name of Christianity." Not your frothy talkers, not your flimsy professors,but your deep taught, Grace-instructed men and women-these are they who are the beauty of the Church and the Glory of Christ!
I would to God we had many more! I look around and see that the cause does not prosper as I would wish throughout the land.And then I remember in one spot an earnest village preacher-in another a holy laborious deacon, in a third a gracious woman,zealous in every good work-and I am comforted! Thank God there is life in the old Church yet! There is still hope for herbecause of her fast-holding people! If I study the statistics of the Churches, I have to say, "What is the good of these figures?Probably a Church of 200 members might be cut down to 20 earnest effectives." For my part, I would sooner stand on this platformwith 12 holy men and women to back me up than with 12,000 mere pretenders to religion such as can be found in crowds anywhere!No, it is the fast grip of faith-it is vital godliness which makes a man to be a real power in the Church!
IV. Now, lastly, I have to mention THE ARGUMENTS of the text, which are three. All through the sermon I have been using arguments,therefore I shall be the more brief and draw to a close. The first argument is, take fast hold of true religion because itis your best friend. Read the text-"Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go." You cannot find your way to Heaven withoutthis guide, therefore do not suffer it to leave you. Do as Moses did, who, when his father-in-law, Hobab, was with him, wouldnot suffer him to depart, "for," he said, "you shall be to us instead of eyes, for you
know where to encamp in the wilderness." As Moses kept Hobab, so you keep the faith, for you cannot find your road exceptby holding the true Gospel with a true heart.
What a sweet companion the Gospel is! How often it has cheered you! How easy has the road become while you have been in communionwith it! Do what the disciples at Emmaus did when Jesus talked with them-they constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us." Donot let Him go! You will be a lonely pilgrim if you do. No, if you could be led by an angel, but must lose the Presence ofyour God, you would be wise to cry out against such an evil and, like Moses, plead-"If Your Spirit go not with us, carry usnot up hence."
The next argument is that true godliness should be held fast, for it is your treasure. "Keep it," says our text. It is yourbest inheritance at the present moment and it is to be your eternal inheritance-keep it, then! Let everything else go, butdo not part with a particle of the Truth of God. The slightest fragment of Truth is more valuable than a diamond! Hold it,then, with all firmness. You are so much the richer by every Truth of God you know-you will be so much the poorer by everyTruth of God you forget! Hold it then and hide it in your heart. A certain king who had a rare diamond sent it to a foreigncourt, entrusting it to a very faithful servant. This servant was attacked, however, on the road by a band of robbers and,as they could not find the diamond, they drew their swords and killed him. He was found dead, but his master exclaimed, "Hehas not lost the diamond, I am sure!" He judged rightly, for the trusty servant had swallowed the gem and so preserved itwith his life.
We, also, should thus place the Truth of God in our inward parts and then we shall never be deprived of it. A priest tooka Testament from an Irish boy. "But," cried the boy, "you cannot take away those six chapters of Matthew that I learned byheart." They may take away our books, but they cannot take away what we have fed upon and made our own! "His flesh is meat,indeed. His blood is drink, indeed," for when we have fed upon Him, our Lord Jesus remains in us the hope of Glory. Hold fastthe truth, O believers in Jesus, for it is your treasure! Lastly, it is your "lift." Mr. Arnot, in His very beautiful bookupon the Proverbs, tells a story to illustrate this text. He says that in the Southern seas an American vessel was attackedby a wounded whale.
The huge monster ran out for the length of a mile from the ship and then turned round. And with the whole force of its acquiredspeed struck the ship and made it leak at every timber, so as to begin to go down. The sailors got out all their boats, filledthem as quickly as they could with the necessaries of life and began to pull away from the ship. Just then two strong menwere seen leaping into the water who swam to the vessel, scrambled on board, disappeared for a moment and then came up, bringingsomething in their hands. Just as they sprang into the sea down went the vessel, and they were carried round in the vortex,but they were observed to be both of them swimming, not as if struggling to get away, but as if looking for something, whichat last they both seized and carried to the boats.
What was this treasure? What article could be so valued as to lead them to risk their lives? It was the ship's compass whichhad been left behind-without which they could not have found their way out of those lonely southern seas into the high roadof commerce! That compass was life to them and the Gospel of the living God is the same to us! You and I must venture allfor the Gospel! This Infallible Word of God must be guarded to the death! Men may tell us what they please and say what theywill, but we will risk everything sooner than give up those eternal principles by which we have been saved! The Lord giveall of us His abundant Grace that we may take fast hold of Divine instruction. Amen.