A Refreshing Canticle.
“We will remember thy love more than wine.” — Solomon’s Song i. 4.
*“This date is an approximation of when this sermon was delivered.”
THE Hebrew word for “love” here is in the plural: “We will remember thy loves.” Think not, however, that the love of Jesus is divided, but know that it hath different channels of manifestation. All the affections that Christ hath, he bestows upon his Church; and these are so varied that they may well be called “loves” rather than “love.” The Septuagint translation is, “We will remember thy breasts.” Bossuet, and many of the Romanist expositors who have brought much sanctity of thought and fervent appreciation of heart to bear upon this superlative Song, dilate very sweetly upon the word “breasts”; as it appears in the Latin Vulgate. I am disposed to be content with our own Version, with the alteration of one letter: “We will remember thy loves more than wine.” By this expression we must understand, of course, all the love of Jesus, from the beginning even to the end; or, rather, to that eternity which has no end. We will remember those acts of love of which we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us. It hath been told us by inspired prophets, and God hath revealed it to us in his Word, by his Spirit, that Jesus Christ loved us from before the foundation of the world. We believe that his love is no passion of modern date, — no mere spasm of pity. It is ancient as his glory which he had with the Father before the world was, it is one of the things of eternity. This love divine is not a spring that welled up only a few days ago, but it is an everlasting fountain which has never ceased to flow.
We will remember, O Jesus, that love of thine which was displayed in the council chamber of eternity, when thou didst, on our behalf, interpose as the Daysman and Mediator; when thou didst strike hands with thy Father, and become our Surety, and take us as thy betrothed! We will remember that love which moved thee to undertake a work so burdensome to accomplish, an enterprise which none but thyself ever could have achieved. We will remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of thyself; the love which, until the fulness of time, mused over that sacrifice, and longed for the hour of which, in the volume of the Book it was written of thee, “Lo, I come.” We will remember thy love, O Jesus, as it was manifested to us in thy holy life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane! We will track thee from the cradle to the grave, for every word and every deed of thine was love. Thou, wherever thou didst walk, didst scatter lovingkindnesses with both thine hands. As it is said of thy Father, “God is love,” so, surely, thou art love, 0 Jesus! The fulness of the Godhead dwells in thee; the essence of love, nothing else but love, is thine incarnate person.
And specially, O Jesus, will we remember thy love to us upon the cross! We will view thee as thou comest from the garden of thine agony, and from the hall of thy flagellation. We will gaze upon thee with thy hands and thy feet nailed to the accursed tree. We will watch thee when thou couldst, if thou hadst willed it, have saved thyself; but when thou didst, nevertheless, give up thy strength, and bow thyself downward to the grave that thou mightest lift us up to heaven. We will remember thy love which thou didst manifest through thy poor, bleeding hands, and feet, and side. We will remember this love of thine till it invigorates and cheers us “more than wine,” — the love, of which we have heard, which thou hast exercised since thy death, the love of thy resurrection, the love which prompts thee continually to intercede before thy Father’s throne, that burning lamp of love which will never let thee hold thy peace until thy chosen ones are all safely housed, and Zion is glorified, and the spiritual Jerusalem is settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven. We will remember all thy love, from its beginning in the eternal past to the eternity that is to come; nay, we will try to project our thoughts and imagination, and so to remember that, long as eternity shall continue, even for ever and for evermore, so long shall thy love exist in all its glory, undiminished in its lustre or its force. “We will remember thy love more than wine.”
Nor is this all the love we have to remember. Though we ought to recollect what we have heard, and what we have been taught, I think the spouse means more than this, loves,” — not only what we have been told, but what we have felt. Come, dear hearers, let each one of you speak for yourselves; or, rather, do you think of this for yourselves, and let me speak of it for you. I will remember thy love, O Jesus; thy love to me when I was a stranger, wandering far from God; the love which restrained me from committing deadly sin, and withheld my hand from, self-destruction! I will remember the love which tracked me in my course, —
“We will remember thy “When Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death.”
I will remember the love which held back the axe when Justice said, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” I will remember the love that took me into the wilderness, and stripped me there of all my self-righteousness, and made me feel my weight of guilt, and the burden of mine iniquity. Specially will I remember the love which said to me, “Come unto me, and I will give thee rest.” I cannot forget that matchless love which, in a moment, washed my sins away, and made my spotted soul white as the driven snow. Can you forget, my brothers and sisters, that happiest of days when Jesus first whispered to you, “I am thine, and thou art mine”? I can never forget the transporting hour when he spoke thus to me; it is as fresh in my memory now as if it had only happened this afternoon. I could sing of it if it were right to stop a sermon for a sonnet; I could sing of that love, passing all measure, which took my soul, and washed it in the precious blood of Jesus, and then clothed it in the spotless robe of his righteousness. O love divine, thou dost excel all other loves, that thou couldst deal with such a rebellious, traitorous worm, and make that worm an heir of heaven!
But we have more love than this to recollect, — all the love that we have felt since then. I will remember the valley of Baca and the hill Mizar; nor shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou hast unveiled thyself to me. If Moses had his cleft in the rock, where he could see the back parts of his God, we also have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendours of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, where he was hunted on the mountains, — the cave of Adullam, and the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots equally dear to these in blessedness. “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Christian, canst thou not recollect the sweet exchanges there have been between thyself and thy Lord, when thou hast left thy griefs at his feet, and borne away a song? Canst thou nob remember some happy seasons when thou wentest to him empty, and earnest away full? Is thy heart heavy just now? It has not always been so. There have been times when, like David, thou couldst dance before the Lord; times of holy merriment when, like Miriam, thou couldst strike thy timbrel, and say to those around thee, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” There have been times when Jesus and thou have not been strangers to one another, for he has linked his arms in thine, and walked along with thee; and there have been other times when thine head has been upon his bosom, and thou couldst feel his heart beating with warm love to thee.
Thus, then, in the summary of Christ’s loves, which I will now humbly endeavour to pass in review, it will be necessary for me to mention, not only the love we have heard about, but the love we have felt and enjoyed. Do not suppose, dear brothers and sisters, that I am able to refresh your memories upon this sacred subject. It is the Holy Spirit’s work to assist you in that matter; but I do trust that the resolution contained in our text will be formed in the heart of every one of you, “We will remember thy loves more than wine,” and that you will have the grace to carry out that resolution.
I. Here then, beloved, we have A RESOLUTION POSITIVELY EXPRESSED: “We will remember thy love.” Why does the spouse speak so positively? Because she is inspired; she is not like Simon Peter when he said, “Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.” She is speaking the truth, for she will not forget the love of her Lord. Why is that? For one very good reason, because she cannot. If the Church could forget Christ’s love to her, she would do so. She is such a forgetful wife that all her Husband’s affections would be lost upon her, were it possible. But that cannot be; there is something about the love of Christ that makes it adhere to those upon whom it is bestowed; we cannot forget it. It enters into the heart, like wine that seasons the cask, and the scent thereof abides. It pervades the soul; it imbues every faculty; it brings the secret thoughts into obedience to Christ; it flows through every vein of hope and fear, passion and desire. So the spouse could truthfully say to her Lord, “We will remember thy love.” The virtue was not in her own constancy, but in the tenacity of his affection, wherefore she could not help remembering it.
What is there, in the love of Christ, that will compel us to remember it? The things that we recollect best are of certain kinds.
Some that we remember best have been sublime things. When we have stood, for the first time, where we could see a lofty mountain, whose snowy summit pierced the thick ebon clouds, we have said, “We shall never forget this sight.” When Humboldt, the great traveller, had his first view of the vast prairies of North America, he declared that he could never forget the sensations of that moment. I can imagine how Dr. Livingstone, when he first came in sight of the magnificent falls which he discovered, might well say, “To my dying day, I shall hear the rushing of that tremendous stream of water.” I can myself remember an unusually violent thunderstorm, when the lightnings flew across the heavens, flash after flash, without a moment’s pause, as though a thousand suns were dashing through the sky. I recollect the consternation of men and women when a neighbouring house was smitten by the lightning, and burnt with a terrific blaze, which could scarcely be seen by reason of the brightness of the lightning. My recollection of that terrible scene will never depart from me. The sublimity of what we have seen often causes us to remember it. So is it with the love of Christ. How it towers to heaven! And mark how brightness succeeds brightness, how flash follows after flash of love unspeakable and full of glory! There is no pause, no interval of darkness or blackness, no chasm of forgetfulness. Its sublimity compels us to remember its manifestation.
Again, we are pretty sure to recollect unusual things. If we were asked whether we recollected that the sun had risen, we might say, “It is not a matter of memory at all. I feel certain that it did, though I did not see it.” But if we are asked if we ever saw an eclipse, “Oh, yes!” we reply, “we recollect that; we remember watching it, and how disappointed we were because it was not so dark as we expected it to be.” Many people do not notice the stars much, but who forgets the comet? Everybody recollects that phenomenon of nature because it is unusual. When we see something strange, uncommon, out of the ordinary way, the memory at once fixes upon it, and holds it fast. So is it with the love of Christ. It is such an extraordinary thing, such a marvellous thing, that the like was never known. Ransack history, and you cannot find its parallel. There is but one love that is like it, that is the love of the Father to his only-begotten Son. Besides this, there is nothing to which we can compare the love of Christ to his people. That constellation of the cross is the most marvellous that is to be seen in the spiritual sky; the eye, once spellbound by its charms, must retain its undying admiration, because it is the greatest wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles which the universe ever saw.
Sometimes, too, things which are not important in themselves are fixed on the memory because of certain circumstances which happen in association with them. The country people often say, if you ask them whether they recollect such-and-such a year, “Ah, master! it was the year of the hard frost, wasn’t it?” Another time they will say, “Why, yes! that was the year when the blight fell upon our gardens, and all our potatoes were of no use, and we were nearly starved that winter. Circumstances help to make us recollect facts. If something particular in politics should happen on our birthday, or our wedding day, or on some other notable occasion, we should say, “Oh, yes! I recollect that; it happened the day I was married, or the day So-and-so was buried.” Now, we can never forget the love of Christ, because the circumstances were so peculiar when, for the first time, we knew anything at all about it. We were plunged in sin and ruin; we were adrift on the great sea of sin, we had no hope, we were ready to sink, and no shore was near; but Jesus came and saved us. We can never forget those circumstances; with some of us, they were truly awful, beyond all description. Therefore, we cannot forget the time when Jesu’s love first dawned upon our minds.
I think, my dear friends, I might give you twenty reasons why it would be impossible for the children of God to forget the love of Christ to them; but above and beyond every other reason is this one, Christ will not let his people forget his love. If, at any time, he finds them forgetful, he will come to them, and refresh their memories. If all the love they have ever enjoyed should be forgotten by them, he will give them some fresh manifestations of love. “Have you forgotten my cross?” he asks; “then I will cause you to remember it afresh, for at my table I will manifest myself to you as I have not done of late. Do you forget what I did for you in the council chamber of eternity? Then I will remind you of it, for you still need a Counsellor, and I will come to your relief just when you are at your wits’ end, and I will give you wisdom. Have you forgotten that I called you to myself when you were a stranger? I will bring you back from your wanderings, and then you will recollect me again.” Mothers do not let their children forget them if they can help it. If the boy has gone to Australia, and he does not write home, his mother writes to him, “Has my John forgotten his mother?” Then there comes back a sweet epistle which lets the mother know that the gentle hint she gave him was not lost. So is it with Christ; he often says to one of his forgetful children, “What! is thy heart cold to him who loved thee so much that he could not live in heaven without thee, but must needs come to earth, go out into the wilderness, up to the cross, and down to the grave, in order to find thee?” Be ye sure that he will have our hearts; prone to wander, he knows that they are, and we feel it ourselves, but he will have them. Oh, that he would drive the nail of the cross right through your hearts, that it might be for ever fastened there! Painful might the process be; some sharp affliction might rend your flesh; yet, if that would bring you near your Lord, and keep you near him, you might thank him even for the affliction, and love him all the more because of it.
II. Now let us advance another step, and look at THE COMPARATIVE RESOLUTION: “We will remember thy love more than wine.” Why is “wine” mentioned here? I take it to be used here as a figure. The fruit of the vine represents the chiefest of earthly luxuries. “I will remember thy love more than the choicest or most exhilarating comforts which this world can give me.” We have many things which we might compare to wine, in the good and in the bad sense, too; — good, because they cheer, and comfort, and invigorate; bad, because, when we rely upon them, they intoxicate, they overthrow, and cast down to the ground. We very readily remember the good things of earth for a season. When creature comforts abound with us, and we have happy and merry days, we recollect them; and when nights of darkness come upon us, we remember the days of our brightness, and we talk of them. It is so with the widow bereaved of her husband; she remembers the days of her happiness, when the partner of her joys was with her; she recollects his affectionate words, and his sweet deeds of love. In the case of the mother bereaved of her child, she recalls the love that child had to her, and the solace it was to her when her little one slept on her bosom. Have you become poor? Then the “wine” that you recollect is the wealth you once possessed; you remember how you had no need to tramp over weary miles, and to shiver in the wintry cold. Now that your pain has come, you recollect your former joy, and it makes your present pain all the more painful. This “wine” may be, to a minister, the joy of being successful; and there may come to him days when his chapel will be half empty, and then he will look back, with regret, upon the joys he once possessed. The spouse saith, “We will remember thy love more than all earthly comforts.” She cannot help doing so; if she could, she would recollect the world rather than heaven; she would have a remembrance of creature comforts, and she would be forgetful of her Lord.
The fact is, the impression which the love of Christ makes on the true believer is far greater and deeper than the impression which is made by anything earthly. Mere mortal joys write their record on the sand, and their memory is soon effaced; but Christ’s love is like an inscription cut deeply into marble, the remembrance of it is deeply engraven in our hearts. The joy of the creature is something like a lithograph cut lightly on the stone; when the stone is cleaned, the picture is gone; but the love of Christ is like the steel engraving, it is deeply cut, and cannot be easily erased. Earthly joys tread with light feet, and leave but a faint impression; but the love of Christ treads into the very core of our soul at every footstep, and therefore it is that we remember it better than we remember any earthly pleasure.
Earthly comforts, too, like wine, leave but a mingled impression. In the cup of joy there is a dash of sorrow. There is nothing we have here below which is not somewhat tainted with grief. Solomon has warned us against the sparkling wine: “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Even friendship, the very cream of joy, trembles on the confines of disappointment, as it is written, “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.” But in Christ’s love there is nothing for you ever to regret; when you have enjoyed it to the full, you cannot say that there has been any bitterness in it. When you have come forth from the secret chamber of communion with your Lord, you have realized the purity of his love, there has been nothing to qualify your enjoyment of it. When you have been to a party of your friends, you have said, “I have been very happy, but — I could not enjoy myself there six days in a week;” but when you have been with Christ, you have felt that you could enjoy yourself in that way to all eternity; you could not have too much of such fellowship, for there was nothing in it to mar your happiness. True, there is the remembrance of your sin, but that is so sweetly covered by your Lord’s forgiveness and graciousness, that his love is indeed better than wine. It has had all the good effects of wine, and none of its ill results.
Equally true is it that the remembrance of earth’s comforts, of which wine is the type, must be but transient. If the sinner could live many days, and have much wealth, would he remember it when he entered the unseen world? Ah! he might remember it, but it would be with awful sighs and sobs. You know how Abraham spoke, across the great gulf, to the rich man in hell, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” But we can say, of the love of Christ, that it is better than wine, for we shall rejoice to remember it in eternity.
“There, on a green and flowery mount,
Our weary souls shall sit,
And with transporting joys recount” —
What shall we recount? Dr. Watts says, —
“The labours of our feet;”
but I do not think so; I believe we shall recount the labours of him who lived and died for us. That is what we shall talk of in heaven; sure I am that this is the theme of all the music and songs of Paradise.
“Jesus, the Lord, their harps employs,
Jesus, my Love, they sing!
Jesus, the life of all our joys
Sounds sweet from every string.”
Do you not see, then, why this comparison is made in our text? We remember Christ’s love more than the best earthly comforts, because they make but a feeble impression, a mingled impression, a marred impression, and their impression, at best, is but transient; but the love of Christ is remembered as something that is better than wine.
I have to hurry over these different points; but if you enjoy hearing about this subject as much as I delight in preaching upon it, you would not mind listening to me all night long, and I should not mind preaching right through the night. Surely, this is a theme that sets one’s tongue at a happy liberty. “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer” if I can but feel the love of Christ shed abroad in my heart.
III. Now, thirdly, I am to speak of THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF REMEMBERING CHRIST S LOVE.
If we remember the love of Christ to us, the first practical effect will be that we shall love him. Can I remember thy love to me, O my sweet Lord, and not love thee in return? Surely, Dr. Watts was right when he wrote, —
“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening powers,
Come, shed abroad a Saviour’s love,
And that shall kindle ours.”
True is it, O Jesus, that there is no light of love in our hearts except the light of thy love! It is the holy fire from thine altar that must kindle the incense in the censer of our hearts. There is no living water to be drawn out of these dry wells; thou, O Jesus, must supply them from the bubbling spring in thine own heart! When my heart is conscious of thy love, it loves thee in return.
Another practical effect of remembering Christ’s love will be, love to the brethren. When we remember Christ’s love as we ought, we shall not meet one of Christ’s brethren without falling in love with him directly. Christ has some very poor brethren, and some very unhandsome ones. David sent to enquire whether there were any left of the house of Saul to whom he might show kindness for Jonathan’s sake. Ziba told him that Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth, who was lame on his feet. What did David do when he heard this? Did he say, “I will have nothing to do with him; I do not want a lame fellow like that stumbling about my palace”? Oh, no! he might be lame on his feet, but he was Jonathan’s son; so David sent for him, and said to him, “Thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.” Did you ever know one of Christ’s beloved who was lame on his feet? There is a little lameness, somewhere or other, about all of them; and if we only love those saints who are very holy, it will seem as if we only loved them for their own sakes; but if we love Christ’s deformed and crippled children, that looks like loving them for his sake. And, methinks, if you could remember what a clumsy child you were yourself, you would not look with such disdain upon any of God’s other children. Ministers have much to bear in connection with some of their people. One man’s judgment is so keen that you are always afraid of saying something amiss in his presence; another man’s temper is so hot that you cannot meddle with him for fear you should provoke a quarrel; another man is so worldly that, although he has the grace of God in his heart, it seems to be only like a spark in damp tinder. Christ has many very unseemly children; yet if we can but see that they are Christ’s, if they have only a little likeness to him, we love them directly for his sake, and are willing to do what we can for them out of love to him. The remembrance of the love of Christ to us will, I repeat, always kindle in us a love towards all the brethren.
The next effect will be, holy practice. When we remember the love of Christ to us, we shall hate sin. Feeling that he has bought us with his precious blood, we shall abhor the very name of iniquity. When Satan tempts us, we shall each one say, “Get thee gone; for I will have nothing to do with thee; I remember Christ’s love to me.” Have you never heard the story of the Indian woman, who, when she was enticed by some great chief, who wished to lead her astray, made to him this noble answer, “I know no one in the world to be beautiful or attractive but my husband”? So will the believer say, when he is tempted, “I know of nothing that is good but Christ; I know of no one who is so fair as he is; so begone, black Satan, my heart is given wholly to Christ, and I will have nothing to do with thee.”
Another effect of remembering the love of Christ will be, repose of heart in time of trouble. When we have, for a while, lost the light of God’s countenance; when we are like the apostle in that great storm at sea, and are in a place where two seas meet, and our vessel is already broken by the violence of the waves, when darkness increases our fears, or daylight reveals fresh dangers, then is it specially sweet to remember the love of our Lord. In such a time as that, the tried believer can say, “He did love me once, and his love never changes. Though I cannot now see the light of his countenance, I know that he is still the same as he ever was. I remember the garden of delights where he revealed his love to me, and the banqueting house where he gave me such choice fare; and I feel persuaded that he has not forgotten his poor spouse, but that he will come to her again, and once more lift her out of the mire, set her feet upon a rock, put a new song into her mouth, and establish her goings.” A constant remembrance of Christ’s love to us will make us always cheerful, dutiful, holy. Dear Lord, grant us this boon; for if thou wilt enable us to remember thy love more than wine, thou wilt give us all good things in one. Let thy good Spirit but keep us up to this good resolution, and we shall be both holy and happy, honouring thee and rejoicing in thee.
IV. Lastly, I would put before you A FEW PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO PRESERVING A DEEPER AND MORE SINCERE REMEMBRANCE OF CHRIST’S LOVE than you have hitherto done.
The old Puritanical divines frequently compared their hearers to the Egyptian dog that ran to the Nile, and drank, and then ran away; they came up to the meeting-house, and heard the minister, took a little sip of the gospel, which sufficed them, and then they were off. One preacher said that he wished they were like the fishes; not come and lap at the stream, as the dog did, but swim in it, and live in it. There are too many, in this age, who are content with hearing a little of Christ’s love; a sip by the way is all that they seem to need. But it would be far better if you could come up to Rutherford’s ideal,” I would have my soul sunk over its masthead in a sea of love to Christ. I would be sunken fifty fathoms deep in the mighty shoreless ocean of his love, so that there might be nothing left of me, and that I might be swallowed up in love to Christ, and in Christ’s love to me.”
I expect, dear brethren and sisters, that your complaint is that you cannot recollect good things as you fain would. I know very well how you feel. You hear a sermon, and become, for a while, absorbed in holy meditation; but you have to return to your shop early to-morrow morning, and you only quitted it as late as twelve o’clock on Saturday night. There are six days for the world, and only one for heaven; it is no wonder that you find the sermon so difficult to remember. You remind me of a person going out into a garden, on a dark night, carrying a lighted candle. If the wind should blow, there is such a careful shielding of the light with the hand, lest it should be blown out. In like manner, it is but a feeble light that you bear away from the public ministry, and there are ten thousand winds blowing around you, and trying to put it out. You must indeed be careful to keep it alight all the week in your recollection. Let me give you a little practical advice as to how you may keep constantly in your mind a remembrance of Jesus Christ’s love.
One of the first things I would recommend to you is, frequent meditation. See if you cannot more often get a quarter of an hour all alone, that you may sit down, and turn over and over again the love of Christ to you. Remember that souls grow more by meditation than by anything else. The cattle go round the fields, and crop the grass; that is like hearing the Word. But, afterwards, they lie down in a quiet corner, and chew the cud; that is like meditating upon what we have heard. Get a quarter of an hour, if you can, to masticate and digest the Word. “A quarter of an hour!” says someone; “why, I could not get five minutes!” I would not be hard with you, dear brother, but I think you could; days can sometimes be pulled out either at one end or at the other. If you cannot lengthen the day at the night end, cannot you pull it out at the morning end? Is there not a possibility of a little saving of time at some hour during the day? You will do none the less work for allowing time for meditation and prayer. Our old proverb says, “Prayer and provender hinder no man’s journey;” and I believe that prayer and meditation hinder no man’s work. Do try to get a little time to think about your soul. What, so much time to be occupied with this dusty, sinful world, and so little time to be devoted to that which relates to heaven! So much time to be employed concerning meat, and drink, and clothes, and. so little time to be given to thoughts of our precious Saviour and all his loveliness! Do get a little time alone, beloved, for that will help to keep you right. You would not forget your Master’s love nearly as much as you do if you would secure more time for meditation upon it.
Another means of remembering Christ’s love is this. Take care that you are not content with what you knew of Christ’s love yesterday. You want to know a little more about it to-day, and you ought to know still more about it to-morrow. Some Christians do not commune with their Lord nearly as often as they ought; I wonder how they manage to live on in such a fashion. They get a little manna once a month, and they try to live on that until another month comes round. They meet with their Saviour, perhaps, at the communion table, — and not always then, — and they are content to live from day to day without having fellowship with him. Be not you one of that order of Christians. Seek for daily — nay, more than that, — continual communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. You are to pray for daily bread; then, surely, he who bade you do that must mean that you should seek to be fed daily with himself, who is the Bread of heaven. I do not like to hear people talk about what they knew of Jesus five or six years ago, unless they can also tell something of what they know of him now. What would you think of a wife who said, “My husband spoke kindly to me some years ago; and I saw him five years ago, but I have not seen him since”? You would say, “How can the woman live, if she is a loving wife, without seeing her husband? Is he in the same house with her, and yet has he not spoken to her all that while? The Lord Jesus is always near to you, and do you mean to say that you can live without fellowship with him? Yes, you can, for some of you do; but I pray you not to live so any longer, for it is a poor, starving way of dragging on a miserable existence. You have just enough religion to make you wretched; you have not enough to make you happy, get a great deal more of it. Drink deeply at the heavenly spring of fellowship. If you learn a little more about Christ every day, you will not be likely to forget what you already know of him.
Then, again, as another way of keeping in your heart what you do know, — take care, when you have a sense of Christs love, that you let it go down deeply. If there were a nail so placed that it would slacken its hold a little every day for six days, if I had the opportunity of driving it in the first day, I would try to drive it in right up to the head, and to clinch it. So, if you have not much time for fellowship and communion with Christ, if you have only a short season for meditation, try to drive the nail well home. Do not be content with merely thinking about Christ, seek to see him before your eyes as manifestly crucified. See him as he groans in the garden, and do not be content unless you can groan with him. See him as he hangs upon the cross, and do not rest satisfied until you can feel that you are crucified with him. Realize your fellowship with him as he rises from the tomb, for this will help very much to keep you right.
I have heard the story of a man, who was passing by a house where a poor idiot lad, with a piece of sand paper, was scouring away at a brass plate. The man asked what he was doing, and he replied, “I am trying to scour the name out.” “Ah!” said the other, “you may scour away as long as you like, but you will never be able to do that.” And so, methinks, I see the devil scouring away at some of you, trying to get the name of Jesus out of your heart. Scour away, Satan, if you like; but you will never get it out, for it is too deeply cut. If Christ’s name is engraved upon your heart, Satan may try to get it out, but he will never succeed in doing so; it shall never be obliterated, but shall shine all the more brightly for his attempts to remove it.
Let me add one more direction. When any of you meet together, it is always a good thing to make Christ the theme of your conversation. Oh, what a deal of idle gossip there is even on Sundays! Many people do not go out on Sunday afternoon, so they must talk about something. They do not like to talk about their trade; that would be too secular, they fancy. They do not like to talk about strictly sacred things; that might appear hypocritical, they think. So they begin, “Have you ever heard So-and-so preach?” “Yes, I did once.” “Did you like him?” So, from one, they go on to others, and ministers and their sermons become the bones that they pick on Sunday afternoons. They feel that they must have some theme for their conversation not quite sacred, nor wholly secular. I would advise you to talk more about the Lord Jesus Christ than you have been wont to do; you will be less likely to forget his love if you are often talking of him. Let the music of his name ring in your ears all the day long; and if you would have it ring in your ears, it must ring from your tongue. Whenever you have the opportunity, tell out the marvellous story of his great love to you; so will your own memory be refreshed, and others, listening to your testimony, will also get a large, and, it may be, an everlasting blessing.
May God now grant to you, my dear hearers, that you may retain a sense of Christ’s love to you, if you have ever enjoyed it! If you never have, may God now give it to you! If you have never come to Christ, come to him now. Remember that Jesus loves sinners. Those who are now farthest from him, when they once return to him, shall know that he loves them. If you “take with you words,” and come unto him, groaning and sighing, he will not cast you out. He stands now with open arms, and freely invites you. Come to him, I beseech you. As his ambassador, I entreat you to come; if you do so, he will fold you to his bosom. All that the heirs of heaven can have, you shall have. All that the glorified saints are now enjoying shall yet be your privilege also. You shall one day walk with Christ in white, and see his face, and be with him in Paradise, and be blessed throughout eternity. May God grant us his grace now, that our text may become the cheerful sonnet of our experience, “We will remember thy love more than wine.”