Sermon 1813. Jonah's Resolve-or, 'Look Again!'

(No. 1813)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 14, 1884,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Then I said, I am cast out of Your sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy Temple." Jonah 2:4.

WHAT a complex creature is man! Those who fancy that they can fully describe him, do not understand him. He is a riddle anda contradiction. As says Ralph Erskine-

"I'm in my own and others' eyes A labyrinth of mysteries."

Here, for instance, is a confession from David. "So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before You. NeverthelessI am continually with You: You have held me by my right hand" (Psa. 73:22, 23). Paul says, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christour Lord." (Rom. 7:24, 25). He is strengthened with all might by the Spirit of God in the inner man and yet he is weakness itself! In the text beforeus, Jonah appears to be in a despairing condition-"I am cast out of Your sight," but still he has hope, for he resolves, "YetI will look again toward Your holy Temple." Everything seems lost and yet, as long as a man can look to God, nothing is lost!God cannot see him, so he thinks, yet he talks about looking towards God-this is amazing, is it not? It is as if he said,"I am cast out of Your sight and yet You are the Object of my sight."

I do not know of a more gloomy sentence that human lips can speak than this-"I am cast out of Your sight." I do not know ofa more hopeful resolution that the human heart can determine upon than this-"Yet I will look again toward Your holy Temple."Oh, untried and inexperienced Brothers and Sisters, be not at all disconcerted when you cannot comprehend yourself! On thecontrary, take it as one of the evidences that there is a Divine life within you when you become a mystery to yourself! If,like a schoolboy, you can draw your own likeness on a slate with a piece of pencil and can say, "This is all myself," why,then you will be rubbed out and your image will be forgotten! But an immortal and divinely-inhabited spirit which is to survivesun, moon and stars is not so readily sketched. While you are brother to the worm and akin to corruption, you are, nevertheless,nearly related to Him that sits on the Eternal Throne! Vast regions of wonder-land lie between your condition, as the abjectprey of Death, and your portion as an heir of God by Christ Jesus. Manhood is a great deep. I set it not side by side withthe fathomless abyss of Godhead, but I know of nothing else which surpasses it.

Our text, next, leads me to observe that faith in the child of God, whatever may be his circumstances, still comes to thefront. Here is Jonah in such a wretched condition that he says, "I am cast out of Your sight." And yet, despite this, he declares,"Yet I will look again toward your holy temple." The huge Atlantic wave comes rolling on-it sweeps not only over the feetand breast of Faith, but it rises far above her head-and, for the moment, Faith seems to be drowned. Wait an instant and withher face ruddy from the wave and her locks streaming from the flood, Faith lifts up her head again and cries, "Yet I willlook again toward Your holy Temple." Write Faith's motto-INVICTA-she always rides forth upon the white horse, conquering andto conquer! Faith is the child of the Omnipotent and shares in His Omnipotence! She is born of the Eternal and she possessesHis immortality!

You may crush and grind her, but every fragment lives. You may cast her into the fire, but she cannot be burned, neither canthe smell of fire pass upon her! You may hurl her into the great deeps but she is bound to rise again. Faith has eyes thatwere made to drink in the sunlight and, so long as God is a Sun, there will be eyes of faith to rejoice in Him! If we havefaith, there is that in us which overcomes the world, baffles Satan, conquers sin, rules life and abolishes death. All thingsare possible to him that believes. Faith triumphs in every place, notwithstanding that her life is one of contin-

ued trial. Sense is broken like a potter's vessel and reason is frail as a spider's web, but Faith abides and grows-and reignsin the power of the Most High!

Please observe, for it may be for the comfort of some here present, that Jonah was in a position altogether unique and yethis faith stood him in good stead. You have read of Joseph in the dungeon, but his imprisonment was nothing compared withthe entombment of Jonah in the belly of a fish! You have read of Job on a dunghill in utter misery-it is a sorry plight-butthere are many Jobs in one Jonah if we reckon by present misery and distress! To lie as a living man in a living sculpturewas horrible. Jonah, no doubt, suffered from those inconveniences which, apart from miracle, would have ended his life rightspeedily. A dark, stifling, pestilential cell would have been preferable to the stomach of a shark, or whatever great fishit may have been which had swallowed him. The amazing thing is that he was aware of his position and knew when the monsterdived to the sea bottom, when it passed through a meadow of seaweed, when it neared some great mountain and when, again, itrose to the surface! This makes the miracle all the more striking, for one is apt to imagine that the man must have lain dormant,or at least, must, in a measure, have been unconscious while in such singular hiding. His position was such as never mortalman had known before or since.

Now, it sometimes happens that singularity gives a sting to sorrow. When a man believes that nobody has ever suffered as heis doing, he concludes his case to be well-near hopeless. Dear tried Friend, you cannot say this with any certainty, I amsure, for you have comrades with you in your every grief. But Jonah could say it with absolute truthfulness-he was where noman had been before and where no man has been since-and still to be alive. His trial was all his own. No stranger intermeddledin it. In his affliction, he had no predecessor and no successor. He was the first and the last that for three days and nightshad dwelt in the belly of a fish! He was singular to the last degree and yet-here is the blessedness of it-his faith was equalto his position!

You cannot banish Faith, her home is everywhere! You have seen upon the Manx penny, the three legs which must always stand-turnthe coin whichever way you please! Such is faith-throw it wherever you may, it always falls on its feet. If faith is in alittle child, it gives the child wisdom beyond its years. If it is in a decrepit old man, it makes him strong out of feebleness.If it is faith in solitude, it blesses a man with the best of company. If it is faith in the midst of adversaries, it bringsto a man the best of friends. Faith in weakness makes us strong! In poverty it makes us rich and in death makes us live! Geta firm confidence in God and you need not enquire what is going to happen-all must be well with you. Winding or straight,up hill or down dale, or through the fire or through the sea, if you believes, your road is the King's highway!

If faith does not fail, nothing fails. Faith arms a man from head to foot with mail through which neither sword, nor spear,nor poisoned arrow can ever pierce. Though it is forged upon the anvil of the devil's greatest subtlety, no weapon can prosperagainst you, O true Believer! You are as safe as He in whom you believes, for, "He shall cover you with His feathers and underHis wings shall you trust. His truth shall be your shield and buckler." If I might, at this time, help any child of God whois in trouble, into a solid rest in God, I should be, indeed, delighted. Oh that the ever blessed Spirit would help me tothat end! Carefully note, first, the verdict of sense-"I am cast out of Your sight." And, secondly, the resolve of faith-"YetI will look again toward Your holy Temple." These, remember, were both found in one man at one time.

I. First, here is THE VERDICT OF SENSE. Please notice that it comes first in the text. Sense hurriedly decides, "I am castout of Your sight." It is noteworthy that unbelief is always first to speak. Whenever David observes, "I said in my haste,"you will notice that something is to be confessed which was unwise and untrue. Unbelief cannot wait, it must have its say-itblabs out all its silly soul at its earliest opportunity! In your own case, if you can be calm and patient, you will speakto God's Glory, but if you are hasty and petulant and must talk as soon as the trial comes upon you, it is almost an absolutecertainty that you will say what you will be glad to unsay! Our hasty words are often dipped in wormwood and handed back tous that we may eat them! Hold still a while, my Brothers and Sisters, or, if you must speak, speak to your God and not againstHim-speak to your God and not to yourself.

Soliloquies are frequently an increase of woe. The heart ferments and heats itself, creating an inward fever which parchesthe soul. If a vessel needs vent, it is not helped by being stirred within itself, yet such is the case when we say with David,"I pour out my soul in me." Better is that word, "You people, pour out your heart before Him," even before the living God!Brothers and Sisters, speak not to yourself, lest you seem to be a madman-you may vex your soul exceed-

ingly by those lone maunderings-speak to your God! Even if you utter hasty words and words of unbelief, they are better utteredin His Presence than muttered within your own heart. He will hear them in either case, but when He perceives that in yourspirit there is no guile, though much impatience, He will freely forgive you all your childish error of too hasty speech andhelp you to bear up under your woe. Speak, for silence slays! But speak to God, for He is full of compassion. Take the warningof the text, however, and be slow to murmur, remembering that the carnal nature is ever swift to speak and sure to speak amiss.

This verdict of sense, in the next place, was apparently very correct. "I said, I am cast out of Your sight." Did it not seemso? Jonah had tried to get away from God and God had pursued him with a tempest and almost broken the ship to pieces in orderto be at him. As the result of the tempest, Jonah had been hurled into the sea and in the sea a great fish had swallowed himand he had been carried down till the floods compassed him about. Did not all his surroundings confirm his suspicion thathe was a castaway? Could he expect, ever again, that the Word of the Lord would come to Jonah, the son of Amittai? Could hehope, ever again, to stand with the joyful multitude that kept holy day in the courts of the Lord's house, or to present hissacrifice of thanksgiving upon Jehovah's altar? No, if he judged by his feelings, he was shut up to the conclusion which heexpressed.

There remained nothing for him but bare life and that in such a condition that one could hardly desire to have it continued.He reckoned, with abundant show of reason, that he must be cast out of God's sight. Yet it was not so and, therefore, I invitethose of you who have begun to judge your God by what you feel and by what you see, to revise your judgment-and in the futureto be very diffident as to your power to come to any just conclusion as to God's dealings with you! Thank God, you will bewrong if you despair. It is much better for you to show your faith by relying on your God than to display your folly by saying,"I am cast out."

As this verdict of sense seemed to be correct, Jonah must have felt that it was assuredly deserved. If the Lord had dealtwith Jonah according to his sins, he would have been a castaway. He had hurried to Joppa and taken a passage in a ship togo to Tarshish, or anywhere else, to flee from the Presence of God. Now, what was a fitter punishment for him than that heshould be cast out from the sight of God? Had not this been his inquiry at Joppa, "Where shall I go from Your Spirit?" Wasnot this his demand, "Where shall I flee from Your Presence?" Now he has his answer-he is carried down till the depth closedhim round about! His waywardness had come home to him-he had been paid in his own coin and what could Jonah feel, but thathe was filled with his own ways? Had he died in the sea, he could not have doubted the Lord's justice. If he had been drivenaway as an outcast, it would have been righteous retribution to a runaway who refused his Master's service. This must havemade him doubly sorrowful! A guilty conscience is the most sour ingredient of all. When each wave howled in Jonah's ear, "Youdeserve it," he was in an evil plight, indeed.

One sharp part of Jonah's misery was that God's hand was so evidently in his misery. He sees it and trembles. Observe howhe ascribes all to God-"You have cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; all Yourbillows and Your waves passed over me." We can bear a blow from an enemy, but a wound from our best friend is difficult! Ifthe Lord, Himself, goes forth against us, the war is one to tremble at! If the messenger of grief is commissioned by Jehovah,Himself, and we know it-mere carnal reason concludes that all is finally over-and that henceforth all we can do is to sitdown and die! Faith thinks not so, but this is after the manner of flesh and sense.

Observe that this verdict of sense, "I am cast out from God," was very bitter to Jonah. You can see by the way in which hespeaks that it is a heavy burden to him and yet it seems strange that it should be so. Here is a man who, when he was in awrong state of heart, sought to flee from the Presence of the Lord and, therefore, went to the seacoast on purpose; rejoicedto find a ship bound for a distant and almost unknown land; paid the fare to sail therein of set purpose that he might getaway from God-and now that he thinks he is away from God, he is filled with horror and dismay! By this we know the childrenof God-even at their worst estate.

Oh, you that are the people of God, you may sometimes, in your willfulness, wish that you could get away from the all-searchingeyes of God, but if you could do so it would be Hell for you! If you are a child of God, you must dwell in the Presence ofGod. It is your life and you cannot be happy anywhere else. Oh, redeemed, regenerate man, it is impossible, now, for youronce renewed spirit ever to be happy in the beggarly elements of your former condition! Except in the Divine atmosphere ofheavenly love there is no rest for you. You are spoiled for this world, O heir of the world to come!

There was a time when its dainties would have been sweet to your taste and your soul could have been filled with them, butthat day is over, now-you must eat the Bread of Heaven or starve!

If you are not happy in your God, you are doomed to be happy nowhere. There is no choice left for you. Your very nature isso affected, now, that as the needle rests not unless it points to the pole, so can your heart never be quiet except in Jesus!The light of His Countenance must be light to you, or you must walk in darkness! Your music must come from Jesus' lips, orelse there is nothing for you but wailing and gnashing of teeth! Your Heaven must be in His embrace- there is no Heaven elsewherefor you! Nor would we wish to have it different. I am sure I can say from my very soul that if God would leave me, it wouldbe to me a Hell worse than Dante or Milton could imagine! What if I still had to pursue my holy calling and to preach! Whatwoe to preach without Him! What a hollow mockery! If I were bound to continue the outward form of prayer and of a moral life,what vanity of vanities would it all be without my Lord!

Without God? Brothers, Sisters, can you bear the thought? It is not the pang of Hell, nor its fires, nor its undying worm,nor anything else that can be pictured of amazing terror that causes such alarm as the bare thought of being severed fromGod! To be cast out from His sight were Hell, indeed! Now, I should think that if Jonah had been in a calm state of mind andhad been able to consider things in the light of the Truth of God, it ought to have given him some ground of hope that hewas not cast out from God, after all, because he was so unhappy at the idea of being so cast out. Will the Lord leave a soulthat is distressed by such leaving? No spirit is wholly cast off from God if it longs after God. If you can be content withoutGod, you are, indeed, a lost one! But if there is in you a wretched rankling discontent at the very thought of being severedfrom your God, then you are His and He is yours-and no eternal division shall come between you and Him!

Thus I have brought out somewhat the force of this verdict of sense-"I am cast out of Your sight." But I want you, further,to notice that it was not true. There was ground for grief, but not for this despairing inference. The verdict was not sustainedby sufficient evidence. It was a great deal more than Jonah should have said, "I am cast out of Your sight." What? Alive inthe sea, Jonah? Alive in the deep? Alive in the belly of a fish? And you say that you are cast out from God's sight! Surelyif God were anywhere in the world, it were in that great fish! Where else could there have been surer proof of His presentpower and Godhead than in keeping a man alive in a living morgue? There was a constant standing miracle for three days andnights! And where there is a miracle, there is God most visibly seen! If Jonah could have asked the seas and asked the deepplaces of the earth, they would have told him that the Lord was not far away. If he could have asked the fish, itself, itwould have acknowledged that God was there!

If those who go down to the sea in ships, see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep, much more might he have seenthem who went into the sea in a fish's belly! There is a text that Jonah could never have heard, which I commend to you againstthe time when you get to be where Jonah was. I do not suppose you will ever be literally buried alive in a fish, but you mayspiritually sink as deep as the Prophet did. What is that text? "Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (John 6:37). Jonah said, "I am cast out"-but that was not true. Poor Jonah! The mariners cast him out, but God did not-he was cast outof the ship, but not out of the sight of God! The Lord of old was faithful and it was His rule never to cast away His people.Even as David says, "For the Lord will not cast off forever: but though He causes grief, yet will He have compassion, accordingto the multitude of His mercies."

Mark the text I quoted from our Lord's own lips-"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Never question this sacredWord of God! He will never, never cast out a single one that trusts Him! So that if ever you should be in a condition whichseems, to you, quite as forlorn as that of this Prophet in the midst of the sea, you may yet be sure that you are not castoff, nor cast out. He who says he is cast out, says more than can possibly be true since the Infallible promise is, "Him thatcomes to Me I will by no means cast out." It is not for us to forge a lie against the God of the whole earth! He does notspeak that which is false, but out of His mouth proceeds Truth. Even if all things in earth and Hell should swear that theLord has cast away one of His own believing people, it will be our duty to disbelieve them all, for it is impossible thatHe should cast out any Believer, for any reason or motive whatever!

II. Follow me, dear Friends, and may the Lord make it profitable to you while I dwell during the rest of my time upon THERESOLVE OF FAITH. Oh that the Holy Spirit may work in us "like precious faith" with Jonah! "Yet," Jonah says, "even if I amcast out, yet I will look again toward Your holy Temple." Jonah was a man of God when he was in his worst state of mind-atno time was the eternal life quite extinct within him. An ugly kind of saint this Jonah, when

he was in the sulks! A proud, self-conscious, willful and morose being-hard to love! Yet, as an oyster may bear a preciouspearl within its rough shell, so did the harsh Prophet contain, within his being, a priceless jewel of faith-faith eminent,prevalent, triumphant-faith of the highest degree!

This faith put him upon prayer. The chapter begins, "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly." Jonahhad not prayed when he went down to Joppa. He had taken the management of himself into his own hands and referred nothingto God as to that rash voyage. How could he pray in such a temper? He paid his fare to go to Tarshish-he did not pray God'sblessing on that expenditure, I am quite sure. When the sea began to work and was tempestuous, he was in the sides of theship, but he did not pray. No, he went to sleep! His conscience had become stupid and seared as with a hot iron-there wasno prayer in him-but there was a certain numbness of mind and lethargy of heart.

And now he gets into the fish's belly, a very close, dead place, where one would think he would lie in a state of coma, orin a sort of fainting fit, if it were possible for him to live at all! Yet there he begins to pray. You will find God's childrenpraying where you thought they would despair and, on the other hand, you may discover that they do not pray where you thoughtthey would abound in supplication. "Oh," says one man, "if I could have my time all to myself and had not the worry of thisfamily and this business, what a deal of time I would spend in prayer!" Would you? I would not guarantee your abundant devotion!

Some of those who have least time for prayer, pray most, and those who have most opportunity and everything congenial, aretoo often found to be most slack in their petitions. Jonah's oratory was narrow and this pressed the prayer out of him. Hedid not pray in the sides of the ship, where he had room enough and to spare. He prayed where he could not get upon his knees,or hear his own voice. Laid out in his living coffin, he began his pleading. One would think it hard to make the belly ofHell, the gate of Heaven, but Jonah did. He prays and one of the surest evidences of a living faith is prayer. If you cannotdo anything else, you can pray-and if you are a child of God, you will as surely pray as a man breathes or as a child cries-youcannot help it! Prayer is your vital breath, your native air. Whether on the land or in the sea, prayer is your life and youcannot exist without it if you are, indeed, born from on high. Answer, dear Hearer, is it not so? It is not the prayer-boo^,but the prayer-faith that we must have! Have you such faith?

I beg you to notice, however, that this faith of Jonah showed itself not in prayer to God in general, but the passage runs,"Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord HIS God." There is a mint of meaning here! If you go upstairs and pray to God, as everybody'sGod, you have done what every Jack, Tom and Harry may do. But to go to your closet and cry to the Lord as your own God iswhat none but an heir of Grace can do. Oh to cry-"My Father and my Friend! My God in Covenant! My God to whom I have spokenyears ago and from whom I have heard full many a time! You whom I love! You who loves me, Jehovah, my God!"

This laying hold upon God as our own God is a business which the outer-court worshipper knows nothing of. Have some of yougot a God at all? "Oh," you say, "I know there is a God." Yes, I know there is a bank, too, but that does not make me rich!What is your God to me? I want to say, "my God," or I cannot be happy! Have you a God to yourself, all to yourself, for ifit is so, you will pray the prayer of faith when you draw near to Him-and this will prove that whatever your condition maybe, you are not cast out from the sight of the Most High!

There is one thing about Jonah I want you particularly to notice, that as his faith made him pray and made him pray to theLord, his God, his faith made him deal familiarly with holy Scripture. "What?" you ask-"how do you know that?" He had buta small Bible compared with ours, but he had laid much of it up in his memory. Evidently he loved the Book of Psalms, forhis prayer is full of David's expressions. Kindly look at Jonah's prayer. I think I am right in saying that there are no lessthan seven extracts from the Psalms in that prayer and its preface. It was Jonah's own prayer and no man compiled it for him,for he was far away from the haunts of men. Yet his heart led him to his former readings and his memory came to his aid withexpressions most suitable and forcible, borrowed from a former much tried servant of the Lord.

A deep experience is bound to resort to Scripture for its expression. Human compositions suffice for surface work, but whenall God's waves and billows have gone over us, we quote a Psalm. When our soul faints within us, we are not to be revivedby human songs, but we turn to the grave sweet melodies of Inspiration. When a true child of God is in trouble, it is wonderfulhow dear the Bible becomes to him-yes, the very words of it! I say the very words of it, for I care

nothing about the scorn which attaches to a belief in, "Verbal Inspiration." If the words are not Inspired, neither is thesense, since there can be no sense apart from the words. My soul knows what it is to hang her hope upon a single Word of Godand to find her trust accepted! I would not even change the expression of our translation in many places-not that I am boundby a translation, for God's original is that which we accept as Infallible, but yet there are translations which are evidentlyaccurate, for the Lord's own Spirit has made them unutterably dear to His saints.

There are circumstances connected with the very words of many a text and with God's dealing with us through those words-andin such instances we cling even to the English text with all our might. I think you will find that tried saints are the mostBiblical saints. In summer weather we delight in hymns, but in winter's storms we fly to Psalms. Your frothy professors quoteDickens or George Eliot, but God's afflicted quote David or Job! Those Psalms are marvelous! David seems to have lived forus all-he was not so much one man as all men in one. Somewhere or other, the great circle of his experience touches yoursand mine-and the Holy Spirit, by David, has furnished us with the best expressions which we can utter before the Lord in prayer.Give me the faith which loves the Scriptures! Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God-and true faith alwaysloves the Word from which it sprang-it feeds thereon and grows thereby!

In proportion as people begin to criticize the Scriptures and to doubt the authenticity of this and that-in that proportionthey move out of the latitude of faith. The region of criticism is cold as the polar seas. Faith loves a warmer atmosphere.The faith of God's elect clings to God and reverences His Word. By every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shallman live-and upon such meat Jonah lived where others would have died.

I desire to come close up to my text, while I bid you note that faith dares come to God with a, "yet." Jonah said, "Yet Iwill look again toward Your holy Temple." Faith in her worst circumstances trusts God. Clog her, load her, shut her up, yetshe looks to God, alone! "O God, I trusted You once when I was but young and I felt my need of a Savior! I came to You, then,and, by Your Grace I looked to Jesus and found peace at once! But then I did not know the evil of sin as I know it now." Whatthen? Why, with this new knowledge, yet will I look to Jesus! I did not know, then, the depravity of my heart as I know itnow, but yet with this fresh sense of guilt I will, by God's Grace, look as at the first! I did not know, then, Your greatand exceeding wrath against sin as I know it now, but yet, with this fuller discovery, I will look to You. I did not knowthe burden of life, then, as I know it now. I did not know the power of Satan over me, then, as I know it now-yet will I lookagain unto Your holy Temple!

With all these new weights and fresh encumbrances I do, today, by Your Grace, what I did many years ago-I throw myself onYou, my Lord, and trust in Your matchless plan of salvation through the precious blood of Christ! It charmed me once, it charmsme yet again. This is the perseverance and determination of Faith. She leaps over all walls and dashes through all hedgeswith her, "yet." Come what may, she has looked to Christ and she means to do so whatever may arise to suggest some other course.

According to the Hebrew, the word should be rendered, "only," instead of, "yet"-"only I will look again toward Your holy Temple."Faith looks to God only. Faith comes alone to her God and seeks no company to keep her in countenance. When we were firstsaved, it was by faith, only, and we must still be saved in the same way. In Jonah's case all props were knocked away-he hadnothing to look to in the whale's belly at the bottom of the sea. But then and there he trusted God and that was all. He couldnot think very clearly, nor confess before men. Neither could he be or do anything, for he was packed away in quarters tooclose for action. But he could look again towards the Temple of God and this, alone, he did!

He could give the faith-look when all looking with the eyes was far out of the question. How could he tell in which directionto look for the Temple when all around him rolled the dark sea? His look was inward and spiritual and he was content to dothat, and only that. His state was looking, looking-only looking. Be it ours to believe, to believe and yet again to believe!Jonah looked, again, to the place where God revealed Himself and we look to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwellsall the fullness of the Godhead bodily! He looked to the Mercy Seat sprinkled with the blood of Sacrifice, where the Lordwas known to pardon and bless all suppliant sinners. And we, also, look to Jesus as the great Propitiation.

To this look we will add nothing as a ground of trust! Jesus only is our hope and we will only look to Him! We will add nothingto our look, our look to Christ! He alone is our stay and our comfort. It is a blessed thing to get clear of all secondaryhopes and to live by faith alone. Mixtures will not do in the hour of trial. A single eye is what is needed-the

least division in your trust is painful and dangerous. If you have lost some of your first light, look again! Look towardHis holy Temple at once and the Light of God shall surely return to you!

Do you notice here that faith is driven to do according to her first acts-"Yet I will look again." You know faith is describedin other ways beside looking. It is taking, grasping, possessing, feeding, but faith, first of all, is looking, and so, wheneveryou fall into grievous trouble, it will be wise to resort to the beginning of your confidence and hold it fast to the end.If you cannot grasp, yet look! There are several grades of faith and when you cannot reach the higher grade, it will be wiseto enter fully into the lower one. Remember, the lowest form of faith will save-and even the smallest measure of faith iseffectual for salvation, though not for consolation. Look! Look to Jesus! "There is life in a look." There is Heaven in alook. "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." Look! If you cannot go forth to fight by faith, stand stilland look by faith. If you cannot declare the glory of the Lord, yet look! If you cannot tell what God has done for you, yetkeep on looking by faith to see what God will do for you! Do your first work and, as your first work was a simple look atthe Crucified One, look again to Him!

With this I shall close, urging dear friends here present, even if they forget all the rest of my text, to remember thosetwo words, "Look again." If any of you are in trouble, I will bid you go home with only these two words ringing in your ears,"Look again!" If you did look once, but have fallen into new darkness, look again! I mean, this morning, and I would ask youto follow me in it-to look to my Lord Jesus Christ, again, as I did at the first. It is frequently a great benefit to overhaulthe foundations and begin again at the beginnings. I looked to Christ 33 years ago, or more-and so did some of you. But thedevil may say, "Your faith was fancy; your conversion was a delusion." Be it so, O Satan! We will not dispute with you, butwe will begin again from this moment!

It is such a mercy that faith does not need to grow old before it saves us-the faith born this moment saves the soul in itsvery birth! Is it so, that your faith is not more than five minutes old, my Brothers and Sisters? Have you only just begunto trust Christ? Well, your faith has saved you quite as effectually as the faith of a man who has believed in Christ for50 years! We must believe anew each day-yesterday's believing will not do for today. Let us now look to Jesus Christ uponthe Cross and trust Him, this morning, as if we never trusted Him before. "I will look again toward Your holy Temple." Itwill do each man good to look anew to that Cross which is the sole hope of his soul. There is nothing more sweetening to thespirit than to confess sin and accept mercy in the original style-and to go to Jesus anew just as we went at first. Let usdo so at this moment!

A person proudly said, the other day, that he could no longer sing-

"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my All in All." He had got beyond that! Highty tighty, here'sa fine fellow! He has just risen from the dunghill and is come to be a grand gentleman all at once! Nothing will do for himbut-

"See the conquering hero comes, Sound the trumpets; beat the drums." Alas, for the top-lofty hypocrite! Shame on the proudself-magnifier! If he did but know himself, he would confess his nothingness with a deeper emphasis than ever-and he would,like the publican, cry-"God be merciful to me, a sinner!" I believe that as a child of God grows in sanctification, he deepensin humility. And as he advances to perfection, he sinks in his own esteem. Oh that men would give over that bladder-blowingwhich seems to be so much admired in certain quarters! We have had much occasion to mourn over the lower life of some professors,but the higher life of others is not a bit better-it is false, proud, censorious, and unpractical!

Those who boast of perfection will have much to grieve over when once they come to their senses and stand in truth beforethe living God! No man talks of living without sin till he is taken in the net of self-deception! I have walked with God formany years and enjoyed the light of His countenance, but my experience is that I am, this day, obliged to take a far lowerplace before Him than ever I took before, while-

"Less than nothing I can boast, And vanity confess."

Brothers and Sisters, whether you will do so or not, I flee to the Cross again! In the Rock of Ages I again hide myself! Whoamong us dares to come forth from that Divine shelter? "Jesus, lover of our soul, let us to Your bosom fly." Let all of ussing as though it were for the first time-

"Just as I am-without one plea But that Your blood was shed for me, And that You bid me come to You,

O Lamb of God, I come."

Dear Friends, it is due to God, it is due to Christ, it is due to the Gospel that we should, every day, believe with the samesimplicity of undivided trust. Keep on believing in Christ, "to whom coming as unto a living stone." We are to live by faith!You may be quite sure that you are permitted to do this, for Christ is always a sinner's Savior. If you cannot come to Himas saints, come to Him as sinners! If your unfitness for fellowship as a servant comes before your mind and breaks your heart,yet remember that you may always return as a prodigal son! If you cannot feed in green pastures as sheep of the fold, yetyield to the strong hand of Him who seeks the lost sheep. If you cannot come to Jesus as you should, yet come just as youare. If your garments are not clean as they should be, yet come and wash them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This ought to be done more readily by us every day, for it should be a growingly easy thing to believe our God as experienceproves His faithfulness. When we are at our worst, let us trust with unshaken faith. Remember that then is the time when wecan most glorify God by faith. To trust Christ when you have a shallow sense of sin, when your heart is glad and your faceis bright, is but a slender trusting Him. But to believe that He can cleanse you when your heart is black as Hell-when youcannot see one good trait in all your character, when you see nothing but fault and imperfection about your entire life, whenall your outward circumstances seem to speak of an angry God and all your inward feelings threaten you with doom from Hisright hand-this is to believe, indeed! Such faith the Lord deserves of you.

Oh, if you are only a little sinner, a little Savior and a little faith may serve your turn. If you have but little fear anda little burden, and little care, and little need-why then you cannot greatly prove or trust your Lord! But if you are upto your neck in sorrow, yes, if you are drowned in it as Jonah was, and are driven well-near to despair, then you have a greatGod and you should glorify Him by greatly trusting Him! If you are tempted to lay violent hands upon yourself, or to do someother rash and evil deed, do no such thing, but trust yourself with your God and this will give Him more Glory than seraphimand cherubim can do.

To believe in the promise of God, as you read it in His Word, is a grand thing. To believe it though you are sick and sorry-thoughready to die-this is to glorify the Lord! Brothers and Sisters, if I live, I will believe the promise! If I die I will believethe promise! And when I rise again I will believe the promise! Let us resolve to believe though the world is in flames andthe pillars thereof are removed. Let us believe though the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into blood! Let us believethough all the powers of the earth are marshaled in fight and Gog and Magog gather themselves together to battle. Let us believethough the trumpet sounds for judgment and the Great White Throne is set in the open Heaven!

Why should we doubt? The Covenant confirmed by promise and by oath-and ratified with the blood of Jesus- places every Believerunder the broad shield of Divine Truth-so what cause can there be for fear? O my Hearer, do you believe in Christ? Do youtrust your God? If you can stand to that, you are not only a saved man, but you already give glory to God. So may He helpyou to do. Amen.