Have you ever had to say something twice to make a point? A mother will drill her children, “Never, ever cross the street without looking both ways.” On special occasions we may even repeat our point a third time. “I cannot, cannot, cannot forget our anniversary,” rueful husbands have chided themselves. But God, in making a point to His people, repeats Himself no less than five times!
“Never! Never! Never! Never! Never!” is the title of Spurgeon’s 1862 sermon and is also the forceful assertion underlying the English text of Hebrews 13:5. In the original Greek, five negating words are repeated throughout the verse to drive home the point that Jesus will never leave His people. It is a “five-fold assurance,” a “quintessence of consolation” says Spurgeon. “If he be father, if he be husband, if he be head, if he be all-in-all, how can he leave thee?”
For those who are in Christ, this assurance has no end. Those who have put their faith in Jesus are eternally united with Him. What grounds do we have for comfort? God, the Creator of all things, is forever with us. Nothing can separate us from His love. “To depend upon the daily providence of a faithful God, is better than to be worth twenty thousand pounds a year. […] How we ought to rejoice with joy unspeakable if He will never leave us! Mere songs are not enough; shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.”
Excerpt:
Whether he gave the word to Abraham or to Moses matters not; he has given it to thee as one of the covenanted seed. There is not a high blessing too lofty for thee; nor a wide mercy too extensive for thee. Lift up now thine eyes to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west, for all this is thine. Climb to Pisgah’s top, and view the utmost limit of the divine promise, for the land is all thine own. There is not a brook of living water of which thou mayest not drink. If the land floweth with milk and honey, eat the honey and drink the milk. The fattest of the kine, yea, and the sweetest of the wines, let all be thine, for there is no denial of any one of them to any saint. Be thou bold to believe, for he hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” To put everything in one, there is nothing you can want, there is nothing you can ask for, there is nothing you can need in time or in eternity, there is nothing living, nothing dying, there is nothing in this world, nothing in the next world, there is nothing now, nothing at the resurrection-morning, nothing in heaven that is not contained in this text — “I will never leave thee; I will never forsake thee.”
Read the rest of the sermon here.