Sermon 2705. Why Some Sinners Are Not Pardoned

(No. 2705)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 16, 1900.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, OCTOBER 30, 1881.

"And why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" Job 7:21.

NO man should rest until he is sure that his sin is forgiven. It may be forgiven and he may be sure that it is forgiven-andhe ought not to give rest to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids till he has been assured, with absolute certainty that histransgression is pardoned and that his iniquity is taken away. You, dear Friends, may be patient under suffering, but notpatient under sin. You may ask for healing with complete resignation to the will of God as to whether He will grant it toyou, but you should ask for pardon with importunity, feeling that you must have it. You may not be sure that it is God's willto deliver you from disease, but you may be quite certain that it is His will to hear you when you cry to Him to save youfrom sin. And if at your first crying unto Him, you are not saved, seek to know the reason why He is refusing to grant youthe blessing you so much desire. It is quite legitimate to put this question to God again and again, "Why do You not pardonmy transgression, and take away my iniquity?" We also ought to press this matter home upon our own heart and conscience, tosee whether we cannot discover the reason why pardon is, for a while, withheld from us, for God never acts arbitrarily andwithout reason. And, depend upon it, if we diligently search by the light of the candle of the Lord, we shall be able to findan answer to this question of Job, "Why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" Job's question maysometimes be asked by a child of God, but it may be more frequently asked by others who, as yet, are not brought consciouslyinto the Lord's family.

I. I shall first take our text as A QUESTION THAT MAY BE ASKED, AS IN JOB'S CASE, BY A TRUE CHILD OF God-"Why do You not pardonmy transgression, and take away my iniquity?"

Sometimes, beloved Friends, this question is asked under a misapprehension. Job was a great sufferer and although he knewthat he was not as guilty as his troublesome friends tried to make out, yet he feared that possibly his great afflictionswere the results of some sin and, therefore, he came before the Lord with this sorrowful enquiry, "Why do You continue tome all this pain and agony? If it is caused by sin, why do You not, first, pardon the sin, and then remove its effects?"

Now I take it that it would have been a misapprehension on Job's part to suppose that his afflictions were the result of hissin. Mark you, Brothers and Sisters, we are, by nature, so full of sin that we may always believe that there is enough evilwithin us to cause us to suffer severe affliction if God dealt with us according to justice. But also remember that in Job'scase, the Lord's objective in his afflictions and trials, was not to punish Job for his sin, but to display in the Patriarch,to His own honor and Glory, the wonders of His Grace by enabling Job, with great patience, to still hold on to God under thedirest suffering and to triumph in it all. Job was not being punished-he was being honored. God was giving to him a name likethat of the great ones of the earth. The Lord was lifting him up, promoting him, putting him into the front rank, making agreat saint of him, causing him to become one of the fathers and patterns in the ancient Church of God! He was really doingfor Job such extraordinarily good things that you or I, in looking back upon his whole history, might well say, "I would bequite content to take Job's afflictions if I might also have Job's Grace and Job's place in the Church of God." It may happento you, Beloved, that you think that your present affliction is the result of some sin in you, yet it may be nothing of thekind.

It may be that the Lord loves you in a very special manner because you are a fruit-bearing branch, and He is pruning you thatyou may bring forth more fruit. As Rutherford said to a dear lady, in his day, who had lost several of her children, "Yourladyship is so sweet to the Well-Beloved that He is jealous on your account, and is taking away from you all the objects ofyour earthly love that He may absorb the affection of your whole heart into Himself." It was the very sweetness of the godlywoman's character that led her Lord to act as He did towards her, and I believe that there are some of the children of Godwho are now suffering simply because they are gracious. There are certain kinds of affliction that come only upon the moreeminent members of the family of God-and if you are one of those who are thus honored, instead of saying to your HeavenlyFather, "When will You pardon my sin?"-you might more properly say, "My Father, since You have pardoned my iniquity and adoptedme into Your family, I cheerfully accept my portion of suffering, since in all this, You are not bringing to my mind the remembranceof any unforgiven sin, for I know that all my transgressions were numbered on the Scapegoat's head of old. Since You are notbringing before me any cause of quarrel between myself and You, for I am walking in the light as You are in the light, andI have sweet and blessed fellowship with You, therefore will I bow before You and lovingly kiss Your rod, accepting at Yourhands whatever Your unerring decree appoints for me." It is a blessed thing, dear Friends, if you can get into this stateof mind and heart. And it may happen that your offering of the prayer of the text may be founded upon a complete misapprehensionof what the Lord is doing with you.

Sometimes, also, a child of God uses this prayer under a very unusual sense of sin. You know that in looking at a landscape,you may so fix your gaze upon some one object that you do not observe the rest of the landscape. Its great beauties may notbe seen by you because you have observed only one small part of it. Now, in like manner, before the observation of the Believer,there is a wide range of thought and feeling. If you fix your eyes upon your own sinfulness, as you may well do, it may bethat you will not quite forget the greatness of Almighty Love, and the grandeur of the Atoning Sacrifice, but, yet, if youdo not forget them, you do not think so much of them as you should, for you seem to make your own sin, in all its heinousnessand aggravation, the central objective of your consideration! There are certain times in which you cannot help doing this-theycome upon me, so I can speak from my own experience. I find that, sometimes, do what I will, the master thought in my mindconcerns my own sinnership-my sinnership even since my conversion, my shortcomings and my wanderings from my gracious God-andeven the sins of my holy things.

Well, now, it is well to think of our sin in this way, but it is not well to think of it out of proportion to other things.When I have gone to a physician because I have been ill, I have, of course, thought of my disease. But have I not also thoughtof the remedy which he will prescribe for me, and of the many cases in which a disease similar to mine has yielded to sucha remedy? So, will it not be wrong to fix my thoughts entirely upon one fact to the exclusion of other compensating facts?Yet, that is how many of us sometimes act, and then we cry to God, as did Job, "Why do You not pardon my transgression, andtake away my iniquity?" when, indeed, it is already pardoned and taken away! If we try to look at it, there flows before usthat sacred stream of our Savior's atoning blood which covers all our guilt, so that, great though it is, in the sight ofGod it does not exist, for the precious blood of Jesus has blotted it all out forever!

There is another time when the Believer may, perhaps, utter the question of our text. That is, whenever he gets into troublewith his God. You know that after we are completely pardoned-as we are the moment we believe in Jesus-we are no longer regardedas criminals before God-we become His children. You know that it is possible for a man who has been brought before the courtas a prisoner, to be pardoned. But suppose that after being forgiven, he should be adopted by him who was his judge, and takeninto his family so as to become his child? Now, after doing that, you do not suppose that he will bring him up again beforethe judgment seat and try him, and put him in prison. No, but if he becomes the judge's son, I know what the judge will dowith him-he will put him under the rules of his house, to which all the members of his family are expected to conform. Then,if he misbehaves as a son, there will not be that freeness of conversation and communion between himself and his father thatthere ought to be. At night the father may refuse to kiss the wayward and disobedient child. When his brethren are enjoyingthe father's smile, he may have a frown for his portion-not that the father has turned him out of his family, or made himto be any the less a child than he was-but there is a cloud between them because of his wrongdoing.

I fear, my dear Friends, that some of you must have known, at times, what this experience means, for between you and yourHeavenly Father-although you are safe enough and He will never cast you away from Him-there is a cloud.

You are not walking in the Light of God, your heart is not right in the sight of God. I would earnestly urge you never tolet this sad thing happen, or if it does ever happen, I beg you not to let such a sorrowful state of affairs last for evena day! Settle the quarrel with your God before you go to sleep. Get it put right, as I have seen a child do after he has donewrong. Perhaps he has been pouting and scowling and his father has had to speak very roughly to him. For a long while he hasbeen too high-spirited to yield, but, at last, the little one has come and said, "Father, I was wrong, and I am sorry." Andin that moment there was perfect peace between the two! The father said, "That is all I wanted you to say, my dear child.I loved you even while you were naughty, but I wanted you to feel and admit that you were doing wrong. And now that you havefelt it, and acknowledged it, the trouble is all over. Come to my bosom, for you are as much loved as all the rest of thefamily." I can quite imagine that when any of you have been at cross purposes with God, He has refused, for a time, to giveyou the sense of His fatherly love in your heart. Then, I beseech you, go to Him, and I suggest that you cannot pray to Himmore appropriately than in the words of the text, "Why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?" Orpray, as Job did, a little later, "Show me why You contend with me, for I wish to be at peace with You, and there can be norest to my new-born spirit while there is any cause of quarrel between us.

Thus far have I spoken to the children of God. Now I ask for your earnest prayers that I may be guided to speak wisely andpowerfully to others.

II. THE QUESTION IN OUR TEXT MAY BE ASKED BY SOME WHO ARE NOT CONSCIOUSLY GOD'S CHILDREN. "Why do You not pardon my transgression,and take away my iniquity?"

And, first, I think that I hear somebody making this kind of enquiry, "Why does not God pardon my sin and have done with it?When I come to this place, I hear a great deal about atonement by blood, and reconciliation through the death of Christ. Butwhy does not God just say to me, 'It is true that you have done wrong, but I forgive you, and there is the end of the matter'?"With the utmost reverence for the name and Character of God, I must say that such a course of action is impossible! God isinfinitely just and holy. He is the Judge of all the earth and He must punish sin. You know, dear Friends, that there aretimes, even in the history of earthly kingdoms, when the rulers say, by their actions, if not in words, "There is seditionabroad, but we will let it go on. We do not want to seem severe, so we will not strike the rebels down." What is sure to bethe consequence of such conduct? Why, the evil grows worse and worse-the rebellious men presume upon the liberty allowed them,and take still more liberty-and, unless the law-giver intends that his law shall be kicked about the street like a football,unless he means that the peace and safety of his law-abiding subjects should be absolutely destroyed, he is at last obligedto act! And so he says, "No, this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. I shall be cruel to others unless I drawthe sword and make justice to be respected throughout my realm."

I tell you, dear Friends, that the most awful thing in the universe would be a world full of sin and yet without a Hell forits punishment! The most dreadful condition for any people to be in is that of absolute anarchy, when every man does whathe pleases, and law has become utterly contemptible. Now, if, after men had lived lives of ungodliness and sin, of which theyhad never repented, and from the guilt of which they had never been purged, God were just quietly to take them to Heaven,that would be the end of all moral government, and Heaven itself would not be a place that anybody would wish to go! If ungodlypeople went there in the same state as they are in here, Heaven would become a sort of antechamber of Hell, a respectableplace of damnation! But that can never be the case. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" He has devised a wondrousplan by which He can pardon the guilty without to the slightest degree shaking the foundations of His Throne, or endangeringHis government. Will you be saved in that way, or not? If you reject God's way of salvation, you must be lost and the blamemust lie at your own door! God will not permit anarchy in order that He may indulge your whims, or vacate the Throne of Heaventhat He may save you according to your fancy. At the infinite expense of His heart's love-by the death of His own dear Son-Hehas provided a way of salvation! And if you reject that, you need not ask Job's question, for you know why He does not pardonyour transgression and take away your iniquity-and upon your own head shall lie the blood of your immortal soul!

Perhaps somebody else says "Well, then, if that is God's way of salvation, let us believe in Jesus Christ and let us havepardon at once. But you talk about the need of a new birth and about forsaking sin, and following after holiness, and yousay that without holiness no man can see the Lord." Yes, I do say it, for God's Word says it! And I repeat that for God togive pardon, and then allow men to go on in sin just as they did before, would be a curse to them instead of a blessing! Why,if the dishonest man prospers in the world, is that a blessing to him? No, certainly not, for he only be-

comes the more dishonest. If a man commits licentiousness and he escapes the consequences of it in this life, is that a blessingto him? No, for he becomes the more licentious-and if God did not punish men for their sin, but permitted them to be happyin the sin, it would be a greater curse to them than for Him to come and say to them, "For every transgression of My righteousLaw, there shall be due punishment. And for all moral evil there shall also be physical evils upon those who commit it." Ithank God that He does not permit sin to produce happiness! I bless Him that He puts punishment at the back of evil, for soit ought to be. The curse of sin is in the evil, itself, rather than in its punishment. And if it could become a happy thingfor a man to be a sinner, then men would sin, and sin again, and sin yet more deeply-and this, God will not have.

"Well," says another friend, "that is not my trouble. I am willing to be saved by the Atonement of Christ, and I am perfectlywilling to be made to cease from sin, and to receive from God a new heart and a right spirit. Why, then, does He not pardonme and blot out my transgressions?" Well, it may be, first, because you have not confessed your wrongdoing. You remember thatthe Apostle John says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Do you ask, "To whom shallI confess my sins?" Shall you come to me with your confession? Oh no, no, no! I could not stand that! There is an old proverbabout a thing being "as filthy as a priest's ear." I cannot imagine anything dirtier than that and I have no wish to be apartaker in the filthiness. Go to God and confess your sin to Him-pour out your heart's sad story in the ear of Him againstwhom you have offended! Say with David, "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight."

Dear anxious Friend, if you say to me, "For months I have sought the Lord, but I cannot find Him, or get peace of conscience."I advise you to try the effect of this plan-shut yourself up in your room and make a detailed confession of your transgression.Perhaps confessing it in the bulk may have helped you to be hypocritical, so try and confess it in detail, especially dwellingupon those grosser sins which most provoke God and most defile the conscience, even as David prayed, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness,O God." That was his great crime-he had been the cause of the death of Uriah, so he confessed that he was guilty of bloodand prayed to be delivered from it. In like manner, confess your sin, whatever it has been. I am persuaded that, often, confessionto God would relieve the soul of its load of guilt. Just as when a man has a gathering tumor, and a wise physician lets inthe lancet, and that which had gathered is removed, and the inflammation subsides, so often would it be with what the consciencehas gathered if, by confession, the heart were lanced, and the accumulated evil dispersed. How can we expect God to give restto our conscience if we will not confess our sins to Him?

May it not be possible, also, dear Friends who cannot obtain pardon and peace, that you are still practicing some known sin?Now, your Heavenly Father means to give you mercy in a way that shall be for your permanent benefit. What are you doing thatis wrong? I do not know you so intimately as to be able to tell what is amiss with you, but I have known a man who never couldget peace with God because he had a quarrel with his brother and, as he would not forgive his brother, it was not reasonablethat he should expect to receive forgiveness from God. There was another man who sought the Lord for a long while, but henever could get peace for this reason-he was a traveling draper and he had what was supposed to be a yard measure, but itwas not full length-and, one day, during a sermon, he took up his short measure in the place of worship and just snapped itacross his knee-and then he found peace with God! He gave up that which had been the means of his wrongdoing. He had soughtfor pardon in vain all the while that he had persevered in evil. But as soon as that was given up, the Lord whispered peaceto his soul.

Do any of you take "a drop too much" at home? Is that your besetting sin? I mean women as well as men when I ask that question!You smile at the suggestion, but it is no laughing matter, for it is only too true that many who are never suspected of sucha thing, are guilty of drinking to excess. Now it may be that there will never be peace between God and your soul until thatglass goes. It will have to go if God is to forgive your sin-so the sooner it goes, the better will it be for you. Perhaps,in your case, the sin is that you do not manage your families right. Are your children never corrected when they do wrong?Are they, in fact, allowed to grow up to be children of the devil? Do you expect God and you to be agreed while it, if so?Think what a quarrel God had with His servant, Eli, over that matter, and remember how that quarrel ended because Eli mildlysaid to his sons, "Why do you do such things?" but restrained them not when they made themselves vile.

Look, dear Friends, God will not save us because of our works! Salvation is entirely by Grace, but then that Grace shows itselfby leading the sinner upon whom it is bestowed to give up the sin in which he had formerly indulged. Which, then, will youhave-your sin or your Savior? Do not try to hold sin with one hand and the Savior with the other, for they cannot both ofthem be yours. So choose which you will have. I pray that God may show you what is the sin which is keeping you from peace,and then grant you the Grace to give it up.

"Well," you say, "I do not know that this is my case at all, for I really do, from my heart, endeavor to give up all sin,and I am sincerely seeking peace with God." Well, Friend, perhaps you have not found it because you have not been thoroughlyearnest in seeking it. You seem to be in earnest while you are here on a Sunday night, but how earnest are you on Monday night?Perhaps you are fairly so, then, because you come to the Prayer Meeting, but how about Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the restof the week? When a man really wants to have his soul saved, he should let everything else go until he gets that all-importantmatter settled. Yes, I will venture to say as much as that. Remember what the woman of Samaria did when she had received Christ'sword at the well at Sychar? She had gone to the well for water, but look at her as she goes back to the city! Is there anywater pot on her head? No! The woman left her water pot-she forgot what had been to her a necessary occupation when once shehad been brought seriously to think about her soul and her Savior! I do not want you to forget that when you have found Christ,you can carry your water pot, and yet cleave to Christ, but, until you have really received Him by faith, I should like tosee you so fully absorbed in the pursuit of the one thing necessary that everything else should be put into the second place,or even lower than that! And if you were to say, "Until I am saved, I will do absolutely nothing. I will get to my chamberand I will cry to God for mercy, and from that room I will never come until He blesses me," I would not charge you with fanaticism,nor would anybody else who knew the relative value of eternal things and things of time and sense! Why, Man, in order to saveyour coat, would you throw away your life? "No," you would say, "the coat is but a trifle compared with my life." Well, then,as your life is of more value than your coat, and as your soul is of more value than your body, and as the first thing youneed is to get your sin forgiven that your soul may be saved-until that is done, everything else may well be let go! God giveyou such desperate earnestness that you must and will have the blessing! When you reach that resolve, you shall have it. Whenyou cannot take a denial from God, you shall not have a denial.

There is still one more thing that I will mention as a reason why some men do not find the Savior, and get their sins forgiven,and that is, because they do not get off the wrong ground on to the right ground. If you are ever to be pardoned, dear Friend,it must be entirely by an act of Divine, unmerited favor. Now perhaps you are trying to do something to recommend yourselfto God. You would scorn with derision the doctrine of being saved by your own merits, but, still, you have a notion that thereis somethingor other in you that is to recommend you to God in some measure or degree, and you still think that the groundof your forgiveness must lie, to some extent, with yourself. Well, now, you never can have forgiveness in that way! Salvationmust be all of works, or else all of Grace. Are you willing to be saved as a guilty, Hell-deserving sinner-as one who doesnot deserve salvation, but, on the contrary, deserves to endure the wrath of God? Are you willing that, henceforth, it shallbe said, "That man was freely forgiven all his trespasses, not for his own sake, but for Christ's sake alone?"

That is good ground for you to stand upon! That is solid rock. But some men seem to get one foot upon the rock and they say,"Yes, salvation comes by Christ." Where is that other foot of yours, my Friend? Oh, he says that he has been baptized, orthat he has been confirmed, or that he has, in some way or other, donesomething in which he can trust. Now, all such relianceas that is simply resting on sand-and however firmly your other foot may be planted on the rock, you will go down if thisfoot is on sand. You need good standing for both your feet, dear Friends-and see that you get it. Let this be your language-

"You, O Christ, are all I need; More than all in You I find."

Do not look anywhere else for anyone or anything that can save you, but look to Christ, and to Christ alone! Are you too proudto do that? You will have to humble yourself beneath the mighty hand of God-and the sooner you do so, the better will it befor you. "Oh, but I, I-I must surely do something!" Listen-

"Till to Jesus' work you cling

By a simple faith,

'Doing'is a deadly thing,

'Doing'ends in death! Cast your deadly 'doing' down, Down at Jesus' feet, Stand in Him, in Him alone, Gloriously complete!"

This is the Gospel-"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." You will never see up in Heaven a sign bearingthe names ,"Christ, and Co." No, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who is the sinner's Savior! He claims this for Himself-"Iam Alpha and Omega." That is, "I am A, and I am Z. I am the first letter of the alphabet, and I am the last letter, and Iam every other letter from the first down to the last." Will you make Him to be so to you, dear Friend? Will you take Himto be your Savior now? "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life." A friend told us, at one of our Prayer Meetings,that "H-A-Sspells, "got it." "He that believes on the Son is a saved sinner, he has got that everlasting life that can neverdie and can never be taken away from him. Therefore, Beloved Friends, believe in Jesus and you, too, shall have this eternallife! You shall have pardon, you shall have peace, you shall have God, and you shall have Heaven, itself, to enjoy beforelong! God do so unto you, for His great mercy's sake in Christ Jesus! Amen and Amen.

EXPOSITIONS BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB 7; JOHN 3:14-17.

Job was sorely troubled by the cruel speeches of his friends and he answered them out of the bitterness of his soul. Whatwe are first about to read is a part of his language under those circumstances.

Job 7:1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?s there not a certaintime for each one of us to live? Is there not an end to all the trouble and sorrow of this mortal state? "Woe is me," saysJob, "will this sad condition of things never come to a close? Must it always be thus with me?"

2. As a servant earnestly desires the shadow. When the day shall close, and he can go to his home.

2, 3. And as an hireling looks for the reward ofhis work: so am Imade topossess months ofvanity and wearisome nights are appointedto me. If that is the case with any of you, dear Friends, you ought to be comforted by the thought that a better man thanyou are underwent just what you are enduring-and underwent it so as to glorify God by it. Remember what the Apostle Jameswrote, "Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord,that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." But if our case is not so bad as Job's was-if we are in good health andsurrounded by God's mercy-let us be very grateful. Every morning that you wake after a refreshing night's rest, praise Godfor it, for it might have been far otherwise-you might have had wearisome nights through pain and suffering.

4, 5. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone and I am full of tossing to and fro unto the dawningof the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. Such was the dreadfuldisease under which this man of God labored, for the worst of pain may happen to the best of men. Sometimes God plows Hisbest fields most, and why should He not do so? Do not men try to do most with that which will yield most? And so God may mostchasten those who will best repay the strokes of His hand. It is no token of displeasure when God smites us with disease-itmay be an evidence that we are branches of the vine that bring forth fruit, or else He would not have taken the trouble toprune us.

6. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. His spirits are sunk so low that he had not anyhope left at all-at least, there was none apparent just then. O you poor tried children of God, I beseech you once again tosee that you are only walking where others have gone before you! Mark their footprints and take heart!

7, 8. O remember that my life is wind: my eyes shall no more see good. The eyes of Him that have seen me shall see me no more:Your eyes are upon me, and I am not As if God only looked at him and the very look withered him. Or as if there was only timefor God to look at him, and then he disappeared as though he had been but a dream, an unsubstantial thing. It is good, myBrothers and Sisters, sometimes, to know what vanities we are. And if we complain that things around us are vanity, what arewe ourselves but the shadows of a shade?

9-12. As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away: so he that goes down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall returnno more to his house, neither shall his place know him anymore. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will

speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale, that You set a watchover me? Am I such a big thing, such a dangerous thing, that I ought to be watched like this, and perpetually hampered, andtethered, and kept within bounds? Ah, no! Job, you are neither a sea nor a whale, but something worse than either of them!So are we all-more false than the treacherous sea, harder to be tamed than the wildest of God's creatures. God does set awatch over us and well He may. But hear Job's complaint-

13-15. When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then You scare me with dreams, and terrify methrough visions: so that my soul chooses strangling, and death rather than my life. Were you ever in this terrible place,dear Friend? Some of us have been there and we have used the very language of Job! And yet, for all that, we have been broughtup out of the utmost depths of despondency into the topmost heights of joy. Therefore, be comforted, you poor prisoners. Throughthe bars and grating of your soul dungeon, we would sing unto you this song-the Lord who has brought us forth can bring youforth, also, for "the Lord looses the prisoners." The God of Job is yet alive, strong as ever for the deliverance of suchas put their trust in Him.

16, 17. I loathe it; I would not live always: let me alone; for my days are vanity. What is man, that You should magnify him?And that You should set Your heart upon him? Job seems to say, "I am too little for God to notice me; why does He make somuch of me as to chasten me so sorely?"

18, 19. And that You should visit him every ,morning, and try him every moment? How long wiil You not depart from me, norlet me alone till I swallow down my spittle? Blow followed blow in quick succession. Pain came fast upon the heels of paintill Job seems to have had no rest from his anguish. This is the mournful moaning of a man on a sickbed, worn out with long-continuedgrief. Do not judge it harshly. You may have to use such words yourself, one day, and if you ever do, then judge not yourselfharshly, but say, "I am only now where that eminent servant of God, the Patriarch Job, once was, and the Lord who deliveredhim will also deliver me."

20. Have I sinned? What have I done unto You, O You Preserver of men? We did not expect him to call God by that name, yetsorrow has a quick memory to recall anything by which it may be cheered. "You Preserver of men," says Job, "Have I sinned?What have I done to You?"

20. Why have You set me as Your target? "Drawing Your bow, and directing all Your arrows against my poor heart. Have You notargets, that you must make meYour target and test Your holy archery upon me?"

20. So that I am a burden to myself?Oh, what heavy words, "a burden to myself!"

21. And why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I sleep in the dust and You shallseek me in the morning, but I shall not be. Speaking after the manner of man, he seems to think that if God does not pardonhim soon, the pardon will come too late, for if God comes in mercy, by-and-by, he will be dead and gone-and God may seek him,but he shall not be found! This is how men talk when they get a little off their head through the very extremity of grief.We, too, may perhaps talk in the same fashion, one day, so let us not condemn poor Job. Now let us read a few Verses in the3rd Chapter of the Gospel according to John, that we may be comforted. If any of you are laboring under a sense of sin, Iwould take you straight away to sin's only cure.

John 3:14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whoever believes inHim should not perish, but have eternal life. ' 'Whoever." Note that word, for it means you, and it means me. No matter thoughyou are near to death's door, crushed and broken, bruised and mangled, look to the Crucified One and, looking, you shall findthat there is eternal life for you! Though your soul has been ready to choose strangling rather than your life, yet thereis a better life for you by trusting in Christ. Choose that and rest in Him. Say, from your heart, the last lines of the hymnwe sang just now-

"Jesus, to Your arms I fly; Save me, Lord, or else I die." 16, 17. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begottenSon, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world tocondemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. Now this, which is good teaching for those who have butlately come to Christ, or for those who are seeking to come to Him, is the very same teaching which will bring comfort tothe most advanced and best instructed of the saints. How I love to continually begin with Christ over again as I began atthe first! They say when a man is sick, it is a good thing to take him to his native place. And when a true Believer's soulgets faint and unbelieving, let

him breathe the air of Calvary again! The learned Grotius, who had spent the most of his life in theological disputations-notalways or even often on the right side-when he was dying said, "Read me something." And they read him the story of the publicanand the Pharisee. He said, "And that poor publican I am. Thank God, that I am publican.' God be merciful to me, a sinner.'"That was the word with which the great scholar entered into Heaven-and that is the way in which you and I must come to God!May the Holy Spirit help us to come to Him thus! Amen.