Gleanings among the Sheaves

by C. H. Spurgeon

The best way to get your faith strengthened is to have communion with Christ. If you commune with Christ you cannot be unbelieving. When his left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me, I cannot doubt. When my Beloved sits at his table, and He brings me into His banqueting-house, and His banner over me is Love, then, indeed, I do believe. When I feast with Him, my unbelief is abashed, and hides its head. Speak, ye that have been led in the green pastures, and have been made to lie down by the still waters; ye who have seen His rod and His staff, and hope to see them even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death; speak, ye that have sat at His feet with Mary, or laid your head upon his bosom with the well-beloved John; have you not found when you have been near to Christ your faith has grown strong, and when you have been far away from Him, your faith has become weak? It is impossible to look Christ in the face and then doubt Him. When you cannot see Him, then you doubt Him; but you must believe when your Beloved speaks unto you, and says, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." There is no hesitation then; you must arise from the lowlands of your doubt up to the hills of assurance.

All Things working for Good.

Christ is the arbiter of all events; in everything His sway is supreme; and He exercises His power for the good of His Church. He spins the thread of events, and acts from the distaff of destiny, and does not suffer those threads to be woven otherwise than according to the pattern of His loving wisdom. He will not allow the mysterious wheel to revolve in any way which shall not bring good unto His chosen. He makes their worst things blessings to them, and their best things he sanctifies. In times of plenty, He blesses their increase; in times of famine, He supplies all their needs. As all things are working for His glory, so all things are working for their good.

The Triumph of Grace.

It is one of the greatest of wonders that all men do not love Christ. Nothing manifests more clearly the utter corruption of our race than the fact that "He was despised and rejected of men." Those, however, who have seen the fountains of the great deep of human depravity broken up, are not at a loss to account for the treatment of the Messiah. It was not possible that darkness should have fellowship with light, or Christ with Belial. Fallen man could not walk with Jesus, for the two were not agreed. It was but the necessary result of the contact of two such opposites that the guilty creature should hate the Perfect One. "Crucify Him, crucify Him," is the natural cry of fallen man. Our first wonder is displaced, and another wonder fills the sphere of thought. Did we marvel that all men do not love?—it is a greater marvel still that any man does love Jesus. In the first case we saw the terrible blindness which failed to discover the brightness of the sun—with a shudder we saw it, and were greatly amazed; but in this second instance we behold Jesus of Nazareth opening the fast-closed eye, and scattering the Egyptian darkness with the Divine radiance of His marvellous light. Is this less a wonder? If it was a strange thing to witness the fearful ravings of the demoniac among the tombs, it is surely far more a prodigy to see that same man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. It is indeed a triumph of grace when man's heart is brought to give its affection to Jesus, for it proves that the work of Satan is all undone, and that man is restored from his fallen state.

Religion a Personal Matter.

Some men say that they will test the holiness of Christ's religion by the holiness of Christ's people. You have no right, I reply, to put the question to any such test as that. The proper test that you ought to use is to try it yourselves—to "taste and see that the Lord is good." By tasting and seeing you will prove His goodness, and by the same process you must prove the holiness of His Gospel. Your business is to seek Christ crucified for yourselves, not to take the representation of another man concerning the power of grace to subdue corruption and to sanctify the heart. Inasmuch as God has given you a Bible, He intended you to read it, and not to be content with reading men. You are not to be content with feelings that rise through the conversation of others; your only power to know true religion is, by having His Holy Spirit operating upon your own heart, that you may yourself experience what is the power of religion. You have no right to judge religion from anything extra or external from itself. And if you despise it before you have tried it yourself, you must stand confessed in this world as a fool, and in the next world as a criminal. And yet this is so with most men. If you hear a man rail at the Bible, you may usually conclude that he never reads it. And you may be quite certain if you hear a man speak against religion, that he never knew what religion was. True religion, when once it takes possession of the heart, never allows a man to quarrel with it. That man will call Christ his best friend who knows Christ at all. We have found many who have despised the enjoyments of this world, but we never found one who turned from religion with disgust or with satiety, after having once enjoyed it. No! no! you chose your own delusions, and you chose them at your own risk; you foster them at your own peril. For if you take your religion from other people, and are led by the example of professors to discard religion, you are nevertheless guilty of your own blood. God has not left you to the uncertain chart of men's characters: He has given you His own Word; the more sure word of testimony, whereunto you do well that ye take heed.