C. H. Spurgeon · 21 of 53

Sermon 2882. Forgiveness and Fear · Part 3

I should like to have said more upon this blessed theme, but time fails me, so I must only say, in passing—"Let every Christian remember that if once he knows the power of the blood of Jesus, there is a Covenant existing between him and his God, and he can say with David, "He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." Believer, between your soul and the Maker of Heaven and earth there is a compact which can never be broken! Though earth's huge pillars bow and break, this Covenant stands forever sure. You being in Christ and Christ being in you, you shall be saved, world without end, for God has declared it and His truth stands fast forever!

III. Thirdly, our text contains A RECOMMENDATION TO THOSE WHO ONCE WERE PRISONERS—"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." I thought, dear Friends, that you were pulled up out of the pit—have you

been made prisoners again? If it is so, it is very sad, but you can never be imprisoned as you were before. Perhaps you have not been living as carefully as you ought. Or, for some other reason your faith has become weak and so you have fallen into the pit again. But you are not now in prison as you were before, for now you believe you will get out again. No, better than that, you are surethat you will. Albeit that sometimes Giant Despair tells you that you will die in the dungeons of Doubting Castle, you know that you have a key called, "Promise," in your bosom—and though you have not used it as you should have done, you have the firm conviction that it will open any lock that old tyrant has made— and you hope, some day, to employ it to such good purpose that you will again be free! But, Sirs, you had no business to get into that pit again. When the Lord once set you free, you should have taken good care not to go back again into bondage.

It is a great mercy that you can never go back to such bondage as you once experienced. You are prisoners, it is true, but you are "prisoners of hope." Therefore, take the good advice of the text—"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." That same Lord Jesus Christ, who, by His precious blood, once set you free, is still a refuge from every storm and every enemy. And if you are wise, you will cry to Him to deliver you this very hour! I address myself to every Brother and every Sister in Christ who has, in any sense, and to any degree, become a prisoner again. My dear Friend, the Lord delivered you, years ago, did He not? Do you not recollect, with intense gratitude, what He did for you then? Well, He can deliver you again at this very moment! You remember how joyfully you sang—

"He took my feet from the miry clay, And set me upon the King's Highway"? Well, He can do the same thing, again, and do it now. Go to Him at once! You do not need a better Deliverer than the Lord who is "mighty to save," do you? And as He was able to deliver you when you were so far gone as you used to be, He can surely deliver you now. You say that you are so foolish and so insensible that you cannot make yourself enjoy the means of Grace as you once did. It seems to you that as you get older you get more insensible. Well, but, my dear Brothers and Sisters, you are not spiritually dead, are you? And yet, when you were really dead in trespasses and sins, Christ quickened you! Then, surely He can bring you out of this state of torpor and restore you from this strange swoon into which your soul has fallen. Return to Jesus now, just as you came to Him at the first! If you cannot come to Him as a saint, come as a sinner!

Oh, the many hundreds of times that I have done that! And I expect to do it many more times before I get to Heaven. "What?" someone asks, "do you have to do that Mr. Spurgeon?" Oh, yes, that I do! The devil says to me, sometimes, "you are no child of God." It is no use to begin arguing with him about that matter! The best way to answer him is to say, "Well, Satan, if I am not a child of God, I soon will be, for I will receive Christ as my Savior and that will make me God's child." "Then," says the devil, "you talk about your faith, but you have no faith to talk about." "Very well," I reply, "if I have not any, I soon will have some, for I will begin to believe in Jesus now." Then he says, "Your Christian experience, as you call it, is all a delusion." Well, I never argue with him about that, but I say, "Suppose it is a delusion, it is still true that 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' and He has promised to save all who trust in Him. So, here and now, I do trust Him and I am saved." Satan is a very old lawyer. He has been in the profession for many centuries and he knows how to raise all manner of quibbles and difficulties—and he can argue and reason in a very crafty fashion. So your best plan is not to answer him at all, except to say, "I have put my case into the hands of my great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have anything to say, you must say it to Him."

That is my earnest advice and it is the advice of the text, too, to all Christians who have, in any sense, come into bondage again—"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." If you do that, you shall soon come once more into light and liberty and joy and peace!

IV. The last thing in our text is A DOUBLE BLESSING PROMISED—"Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." If you turn to Christ, you shall get a double blessing! What does this part of the text mean?

Well, it means that God has such abundant Grace to give that He will not only give you what you really need, but He will give you twice as much as that!All the flowers in God's spiritual garden bloom double. There never was any mercy of His which had not many other mercies wrapped up in it. Every one of them contains far more blessing than we thought it did. Now, dear Brother, dear Sister—can you open your mouth wide and ask from God some great thing? If you do so, you shall receive from God twice as much as you asked for! Do you feel a great need within your soul—a need that is

truly dreadful? It craves so much that it seems to be like the two daughters of the horseleech, crying, "Give, give!" Well, God will give you so much that you shall have enough to satisfy that craving twice over! Have you had some very great trouble? Then believe in the Lord and you shall have double as much joy! Have you had deep depression of spirit? You shall have double as much of holy exultation and delight! Has the Lord laid His rod very heavily upon you and made you sorely smart? Then He will give you two kisses to every blow! Has He made you drink out of the bitter cup? Then He will bring you a double draught of the spiced wine of the juice of His pomegranate, two cups of that heavenly nectar for every cup of quassia that you have had! He will make you consolations to abound and super-abound far above all your tribulations!

"Well," you say, "I am expecting something very great from the Lord." I am glad of it, but you will receive twice as much! The Queen of Sheba expected a great deal when she went to see Solomon, yet she had to say, "The half was not told me." So shall you find it with God. I read in the Scriptures that God is Love, but His love to me has been a thousand times better than I ever expected it would be! I thought that when I came to trust under the shadow of His wings, that I should have mercy and Grace and peace—but I never dreamt how much mercy, Grace and peace I would have! And, Brothers and Sisters, I believe it is better than before and that there is something brighter and sweeter than anything I have ever known yet to come! And it shall be the same with you. The Lord will go on to double your blessings and give you yet more and more, according to that blessed text, "Of His fullness have we all received, and Grace for Grace"— Grace upon Grace.

I especially beg you to notice that this is a present promise—"Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Then why should you not get some of this double joy this very moment? I know that you said, as you were coming to this service, "I do not think I ought to stay for the Communion—I do not feel fit to go to the Table of the Lord. I seem to be as lifeless as a log. If I go and sit there, it will merely be to eat the bread and to drink the wine, but not to enjoy real fellowship with the Lord." Ah, my Brother, my Sister, if that is true concerning you, it is to you that the text says, "Return to the stronghold." Turn to Christ as you did at the first and then it may be that your fellowship with Him will be sweeter than even that which you enjoyed when first you came to His Table! It is the Lord who says, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Plead the promise in silent prayer right now—if you do so in faith, I shall be surprised if you do not get a double blessing from the Lord very speedily.

Finally, note how true the promise is. When God says, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you," who among us dares to doubt His declaration? I have sometimes heard people say, when they have needed to be believed, "I declare to you that it is so." And you know that the law of the land now allows those of us who object to the taking of an oath, to make an affirmation and to say, "I do solemnly declare that such-and-such is the fact." And, in that fashion, God says, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Well, then, take Him at His word and "turn you to the stronghold." While you are sitting here, trust the Lord to give you the double blessing that He has promised! If you do that, you may, each one, say, as you go home, "'Before I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.' I had no idea, when I went into the House of Prayer, that I could be so changed. I was singing, no, I mean, howling or growling—as I went up the steps—

"'Dear Lord, and shall I always lie At this poor dying rate? My love so faint, so cold to You And Yours to me so great?' yet, when I came out, I was able to sing, and almost to shout—

"'If ever I loved You, my Jesus, it is now.

God grant that this may be the happy experience of many of you, for Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH9.

Verse 1. The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach. Or Syria.

1, 2. And Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD. And Hamath also shall border thereby. Tyrus. That is, Tyre.

2-4. And ZidOon, though it is very wise. And Tyrus did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver and the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out and He will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. This prophecy was literally fulfilled. Tyre was attacked by Alexander the Great and after withstanding a long siege, was destroyed by him. The strength of the city lay in the fact that it was built right out into the sea and that it was protected by a vast, massive hole. Also, as a great trading center, it possessed enormous wealth and so was able to hire mercenary soldiers. But all its power and its wealth could not preserve it from destruction! And although we read of Tyre in the New Testament, it is now only a place for the drying of the nets of a few poor fishermen, even as Ezekiel foretold that it would be (26:14). When God foretells destruction, it always comes. But, blessed be His holy name, when He promises blessing, that comes just as surely!

5. Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shallsee it, and be very sorrowful, andEkron; for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. When Alexander invaded the country, the Philistines expected that he would be hindered by the Tyrians, but, when Tyre fell, the Philistines were easily conquered. That shows you the meaning of the prophecy and how literally it was fulfilled.

6. And a bastard. Or, stranger.

6. 7. Shall dwellin Ashdod, andl will cut off thepride of the Philistines. Andl wiil take away his blood out ofhis mouth. That is, the prey that he had caught—"I will snatch it out of his mouth."

7. And his abominations from between his teeth: but he that remains, even he shall be for our God, and he shall be as a governor in Judah, andEkron as a Jebusite. There is no doubt that after the days of Alexander, many Philistines became proselytes to the faith of the Jews and were absorbed into the Jewish nation, so that an Ekronite became like an Israelite—and this is a symbol of what God is doing all over the world! He takes men who are strangers and foreigners to the citizenship of Zion and puts them among His people, and treats the Ekronite as a Jerusalemite. Blessed be His name for this great act of Sovereign Grace.

8. And I will encamp about My house because of the army, because of him that passes by, and because of him that returns: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with My eyes. And so it was. Alexander went to Jerusalem, after destroying Tyre, but he did not attack the city. There was a strange restraint resting upon him which prevented him from touching the house of the living God. I need not repeat the well-known story of how he was met by the high priest whom he recognized as the man whom he had seen in a dream, and so, though he smote Tyre and Philistia, he allowed the people of God to go free. But, after that time, something better happened. That great event is marked off by a new paragraph in our Bible—and well it may be.

9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you. Not Alexander the Great, but, "your King." "Your King comes unto you."

9. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. What a beautiful and faithful description of our Lord Jesus Christ! We wonder that Israel cannot see the Messiah here. Had this verse been written afterthe coming of Christ, it could not more accurately have described the blessed Person and Character of our Lord Jesus. His very riding into Jerusalem upon an ass, with her colt trotting by her side, is most plainly foretold here.

10. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and He shall speak peace unto the heathen: and His dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. This is our glorious King—the King whose conquests are not achieved by horses, chariots and battle-bows, but by the more powerful panoply of the Truth of God and love! Blessed are all who dwell beneath the rule of such a King as He is!

11. 12. As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double unto you. Christ has come to set the prisoners free and to be the stronghold of His people. Therefore turn to Him and all manner of precious blessings shall be yours.

13. For I have bent Judah for Me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you as the sword of a mighty man. This is a truly wonderful passage, setting forth how God is going to use His people as the weapons by which He will conquer the world. He will bend Judah and make her into a bow, and

take Ephraim, and make her into an arrow—and then he will shoot His strangely-fashioned shaft against His adversaries and ours! What does this mean but that He is going to use those of us who are His own saved ones, that He may conquer the world by us? And what a blessed battle this is! "Your sons O Zion against your sons, O Greece"—the simple Believer against the cultured man of reason without faith—the humble truster in the Lord Jesus Christ against the man who proudly boasts of his own learning and eloquence! How will this battle end? We know which side will win, for "the Lord of Hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge."

14. And the Lord shall be seen over them. As He has in the midst of His people of old.

14. And His arrows shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. Here you have a foresight of Pentecost and the grand era which succeeded the outpouring of the Spirit. Oh, that we might once again prove what God's Almighty Spirit can do!

15. The LORD ofHosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar You remember that the mockers said, on the day of Pentecost, "These men are full of new wine." They were not, as Peter plainly declared, "these are not drunken, as you suppose." Neither does this prophesy mean that they would be so, but that the Spirit of God should fall so copiously upon them as to fill them, like bowls brimming over with precious liquid, or like the corners of the altar drenched for Elijah's sacrifice. It is a grand thing when Believers in Christ are thus filled to overflowing with the Spirit of God and Divine energy—they are the men who will win the battle for the cause of God and His Truth.

16. 17. And the LORD their God shall sa ve them in that day as the flock of His people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon His land. For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.