Sermons

Reasons for Doubting Christ

Charles Haddon Spurgeon November 26, 1876 Scripture: Matthew 14:31 From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 51

Reasons for Doubting Christ

 

“Wherefore didst thou doubt?” — Matthew xiv. 31.

 

OUR Lord did not begin his dealings with Peter on this emergency by asking him that question. He first stretched out his hand and saved him from his peril, and then he said to him, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” When a man is in trouble, help him out first, and then blame him for having got into it, if you feel it necessary to do so. It is cruel to bring your censure to bear upon sinking Peter. First give him your help, lest he perish in the sea, and when you have done that you may afterwards chide him for any fault that you perceive in him. This is always the way with our Master. He giveth liberally and upbraideth not, except when there shall come to be a special reason for our spiritual profit, when a little upbraiding may do us good.

     Now I am going, first, to use our text, and then I am going to alter it. I shall first speak to God’s people, and say, “Wherefore didst thou doubt, O Christian?” and then put it into another tense altogether, and address it to the unconverted, and say, “Wherefore dost thou doubt, O thou who knowest the gospel, but hast not yet believed it?”

     I. LET US USE THE TEXT, AND QUESTION GOD’S PEOPLE: “Wherefore didst thou doubt?” I am probably addressing some brothers and sisters — perhaps a great many who have been through a season of profound gloom, and in the midst of that gloom there has been the element of spiritual evil. To be gloomy and depressed is not sinful at all, but there may have been in the midst of that the sin of unbelief: there may have been a doubting of God— a distrust of his providence a questioning of his love. Now I come at this time to such a brother or sister, and say, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” Can you answer that question? Shall I help you?

     First, I will suppose some reasons which, if they do exist, will justify you in having doubted; and then I will take the reasons you yourselves assign one by one. I shall put them to you to know whether the supposition is allowable.

     You may doubt if on former occasions you have found God unfaithful to his promise. If he has lied unto you, — if, after having said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” you have found, say on one occasion at the least, that he has utterly failed you and forsaken you, then you are perfectly justified in doubting him for the future, and you were justified in doubting him just now. What say you to the supposition? I would not ask you to speak what is not true, even for God himself, for there is nothing more detestable in God’s sight than for us to attempt to honour him by falsehood. A pious fraud is a most impious blasphemy. No, speak the truth. Has the Lord been a wilderness or a land of darkness to you? Has he said, and has he not done it? Can you put your finger upon a single promise, and say, “I relied upon this, and I found it failed me? He said that they that trusted in him should never be ashamed nor confounded?” Can you say that you did trust him in some particular event, and the failure you experienced made you to be ashamed? Brothers and sisters, I know what you will say to that supposition. You are grieved almost to hear it made. You rise up with loving indignation, and you say, “God is faithful and true. He has not gone back from his promise in any single instance.” Then, brother, very softly will I put it— and I have reasons for doing it very softly— O thou of little faith, if it be so, wherefore didst thou doubt? If he helped thee before, why didst thou doubt him in the next trouble? If he fed the five thousand with the loaves and the fishes, why didst thou think that he could not make thee also walk the waters of the sea?

     There is another supposition: you may doubt if your case is a new one, and so superlatively difficult that it is quite certain that God cannot help you in it. You require something more than omnipotence; and the case is so perplexing that even omniscience cannot see a way out of it. Now, as I make that supposition, my heart is laughing at the very absurdity of the terms I use, for if we say omni-potence, that is all power. It is not possible that anything should be beyond that. And if we say omni-science, that is all wisdom. It is not even imaginable that anything can surpass that; so I think I had better dismiss this supposition at once. Only it is sometimes put in Scripture by way of question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” “The Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear?” When you answer, “I know that God is able, and I know that God is wise to help me,” then I must whisper that question again, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     But I will suppose something else, that you may doubt if God has abolished the promises. Dear brother, is it true that the Bible has run out and become like an old almanac that is done with, — that God has spoken somewhere in the dark places of the earth, and has said that the seed of Jacob may seek his face in vain, and that he will not be held to his covenant or bound to a single promise that he has made— that he has revoked them all. You are astonished, that I should erven utter such a supposition. Your soul rises indignantly to repel the imagination, for if you say, “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen unto the Glory of God by us.” You know, and you are assured, that he cannot change. He is “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,” and you are quite certain that he speaks the truth when he says, “my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips.” “God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.” You are persuaded of all this, my dear brother, are you not? Then, all those promises being true, and all confirmed with the sprinkled blood of Christ, I must have your ear yet again while I just whisper into it, “Wherefore, then, didst thou doubt? Wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     There is only one more supposition, but it is the worst of all. You may doubt, if God himself has entirely changed— a supposition which has been put by the psalmist in other language, “Will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?” Now, do you believe for a single moment that God is changed in his love or in the objects of it? Do you think that he has cast away his people whom he did foreknow? that Christ will lose that which he bought with his precious blood? that he will strike off the precious stones of his breastplate the names which from eternity were written there? that he will forget the children of his choice when he said, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee”? And, again, “the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee”? And yet again, “I am God; I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed”? Do you not remember reading the words, “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end”? Well, brothers, since those things are so, I shall have to come back to my old question, and say, “O thou of little faith, with an unchanged God to trust to, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     Now, I cannot think of any other supposition that might make it justifiable to doubt, so now I am going to hear— or I will repeat on your behalf— some of the answers to the question which, perhaps, you would give.

     First, I hear one say, “I doubted because my sinful life became unusually clear and distinct to me. I hope I have been converted, have felt my need of Christ, and have put my trust in him. But I never had such a sight of myself as I had a little while ago. It seemed as if the fountains of the great deep were broken up; I saw that I had sinned foully and fallen far; my best actions I discovered to be polluted, and the whole of my life to be marred through and through with an evil spirit and with everything that was contrary to the mind of God; when I saw sin like that, then it was that I doubted.” Yes, dear brother, I know your feelings, and such doubts as yours often— too often— come upon men. But did you not know, was it not told you from the beginning, that your sin was such that you were condemned in the sight of God, and accursed by the law? Did you not know that in spite of your sin “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” even the very chief? Did not you know God willed- not the death of any sinner, and that “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”? Yes, you did know it; and therefore I can only dismiss that excuse by saying that since thou didst know that, with all thy sin, the boundless atonement was able to meet it,— since thou didst know that, with all thy blackness, the fountain filled with blood had power to wash it out, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     “Ah,” say you, “but it was not quite a sight of my past sin: it was because of my sinfulness by nature. I thought after I was converted that I should not feel any sin within me, or that, if I did know its presence by experience that I should conquer it; instead of that it has been a fight with me every day, and only the other day, when I was exposed to temptation, I was carried right off my feet; when I got alone into my chamber, and saw how badly I had acted, I looked into my heart, and discovered it to be still full of all manner of evil; and, though I hope there is some grace within me, yet is there so much of the old nature that I know not what to do. That is why I doubt.” Yes, but, my dear brother or sister, whichever you may be, did not you know of old that the Lord Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil in you, and that where he has begun the good work he will carry it on? Did not you know that the Spirit of God is given to help our infirmities, and that he sanctifieth us and all the elect people of God, — that from day to day he leads us to the fountain for sin and for uncleanness in order to be cleansed from sin, and that he brings us the power to overcome sin? Did not you know that Christ is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before his presence with exceeding joy? Yes, you did know that; and therefore that meets all difficulty, and I have to say to you again that the excuse will not hold water. “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     “Ah, sir,” says one, “you do not know everything. I doubted because I have been in a case such as never happened to anybody before. I was in a dreadful trouble. O sir, my trouble was so peculiar that I could not tell it to anybody, and I should not have liked to have done so. Wave after wave swept over me. I could not see any way of escape from it at all. It was so extraordinary that I am sure that I must be the man that hath seen affliction, peculiarly marked out from all the rest.” Yes, dear friend, that is very likely. I know a great many that have entertained the same opinion of themselves that you do of yourself, and I have sometimes put myself down in the category though you may not think so; but do not you know that it is said, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all”? Did you never read, “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”? Did you never hear of Gad, of whom it is said that, “a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last”? Have you not read, “They shall surely gather together against thee, but not by me. Whosoever shall gather together against thee shalt fall for thy sake. No weapon that is farmed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Did you not know that? If you did not, there was the book which you might have searched to find the promise. And, knowing all that, dear friend, though thy case may be peculiar, thou shouldest not have given place to doubt at all, for thou hast a unique Saviour. His people are a peculiar people, but he is a peculiarly glorious Deliverer and Captain to them, and he will bring all of them safely to the eternal glory. Therefore, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     I can suppose another person answering on quite another score. He says, “Ah, sir, I doubted in anticipation of the trouble because I felt I could not bear the trial. I felt that I should sink under it, if it did happen. O sir, I had a fear upon me that if it did occur I should perish.” Yes, I know that experience too. How did it turn out? Did the dreaded ill occur? “No,” say you. why did you want to be crossing the bridge before you came to it? “Oh, but it did occur,” say you. Have you perished by it then, brother? “No,” you are compelled to answer; “I found such strange assistance given in the time of need, and such singular succours just when I was in my deepest temptation. You know, sir, I had looked for the trouble, but I never expected to find such friends as God raised up, and such remarkable helps as he found for me.” Ah, I see, God has given you two eyes, and you shut up one of them. You had only looked at the dark side, but you did not look at the bright side. “Oh, but,” perhaps you say, “I did not think there was any bright side.” No, I know you did not, but God knew that it was there; has not he said to you of old many times, “Cast thy burden on the Lord and he will sustain thee”? That is to say, whether there is a bright side to it or not, cast it on the Lord and it will be well with you. “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” “Trust in the Lord and do good: so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” You may say, in confidence, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up,” for he has said, “I will never fail thee nor forsake thee.” Well, you knew of this, and so I come back to my question, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     I could multiply these cases, but I ask each friend who has been doubting to state his own reason to his own heart: he will easily be able to find an answer also.

     Now, I want your ear just a minute or two in order to see how your doubts and fears look under certain aspects. “Wherefore didst thou doubt?”

     Look at your doubts, in the light of your conversion. You remember when first you knew the Lord. You remember those happy days and weeks when you were first converted, it was the time of your spiritual honeymoon. Suppose, at those times, somebody had said to you, “You will doubt the Saviour.” You would have said, “Never! Why, the wonders of God’s grace to me in saving such a lost wretch as I am are so extraordinary that others may doubt, but I never shall.” Well, then, just look at these doubts in that light.

     After that you had a severe trial, but now you have got out of the difficulty which troubled you, have you not? You have gained the shore again after your buffeting with the waves. Now, I want you to look at your doubts in the light of your deliverance. The preacher need scarcely tell how disgusted he has been with himself, when he has passed through a trial, to think that he could not have left it in the hands of God, but he began tinkering the matter himself and made a failure of it because he tried to meet the need with his own wisdom, which was nothing but perfect folly and ignorance. Do you not feel the same? Could not you set yourself up for a scarecrow, and laugh at yourself? I am sure you could if the Lord has delivered you.

     Once more. How do you feel about your doubts when you get into Jesus Christ’s bosom, — when your head is where the head of John was, and the Lord is looking at you, and saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” Suppose the next thing he said was, “Wherefore didst thou doubt?” Why, you would look at him with the tears in your eyes, and say, “Dear Master, I pray you do not say anything about it, I am so ashamed of my doubt. Oh, let it be forgotten. I never had any cause to distrust thee. I grieve to think that I should ever have got into a state where such doubts were possible.”

     I will put you in another position. How do you feel about your doubts when you try to teach other people? Here is a dear, doubting sister, or brother, and you are trying to comfort the downcast soul. How do you think about yourself when you wanted comfort yourself, when you were down in that very way? It is a dreadful thing for a man, when he is very sad and low-spirited, if some Christian brother goes and cuts a bit out of the man’s own sermons, and sends it to him. I have had that experience myself sometimes, and, as I have read my own words, I have said, “What a fool I am!” That is wonderfully near the truth when you say it about yourself brother. I do not think we have ever hit the nail on the head much more clearly than when we say we are foolish and ignorant— for that is exactly what we are, only with a dash of sin with the folly, when we begin to doubt the ever blessed God, who ought to be trusted with very implicit confidence, even as a little child trusts to its mother’s love. Never ought a doubt to come into our hearts towards our Saviour.

     And how do you think your doubts will look when you get to heaven and look back at them? Mrs. Hannah More tells us that she went into a carpet factory, and when she looked at the carpet she could not make out any design, and she thought that there had been some mistake. There were long pieces that seemed to have no beauty in them whatever; but the manufacturer said, “Madam, I will take you round to the other side”; then she saw the beauty of the pattern that was being woven into the fabric. Well, now, while you and I are here, we are full of doubts, because we cannot make the pattern out. We are the wrong side of the carpet; but when we get to heaven, and see all that God intended and worked for us, I think that even in heaven we shall call ourselves fools, and say, “How could I have judged before my time that splendid design of providence which was hidden in the infinite wisdom and love of God’s gracious heart? How could I have been dissatisfied with that which was working my lasting good?” Wherefore, then, didst thou doubt?

     Two or three words just to say that I think that I can give the reason why some Christians do doubt occasionally. Perhaps their brain is weary. I pity them; but they must not pity themselves too much. Perhaps they have not been living near to God. Perhaps they were getting rather proud, and thought that if they walked on the water they must be fine fellows. Perhaps they took their eye off their Master; I reckon that was what Peter did; he began to look at the winds and the waves, and therefore he could not be looking at Christ too. Perhaps they began to walk by sight, instead of by faith, and that is enough to make anybody sink. Some cause or other there must have been; but, whatever cause it was, it is cause for sorrow, cause for regret, cause for repentance, for the Lord deserves to be implicitly trusted. In answer to his question, “Wherefore didst thou doubt?” we give this reply, “Good Lord, forgive thy servants in this thing, and lead us in quietness and patience to possess our souls.”

     Thus much to the people of God.

     II. Now, LET US SLIGHTLY ALTER THE TEXT AND QUESTION THOSE THAT ARE NOT GOD S PEOPLE. We will pause a minute, and use the text in another tense. The Lord Jesus Christ has been into this world and done a great deal for sinners; and, as the result of what he has done, he has bidden us go and proclaim everywhere free salvation through his precious blood; he declares that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. Many know all about this. They are well acquainted with the truth of substitution, and the way in which God can be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly; but they are still full of doubts. They have not believed. Dear friend, I think I can give you some good reasons for your doubting, if I am allowed a little scope for imagination.

     And I suppose, first of all, that you have heard of a number of others that have been to Christ and have believed in him, and yet have perished. If you have really known such persons, you are perfectly justified in not believing in Christ. You have a brother, I suppose, that trusted Christ and yet died in despair. You have a sister, perhaps, that put all her confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet was not saved. Now, I am absolutely certain that nothing of the kind has ever occurred. I am equally certain that beneath the copes of heaven, during all time since Adam fell, there has never been a solitary instance of a soul sincerely seeking the mercy of God through Jesus Christ, and putting its trust in him, and yet missing eternal salvation. So if you cannot have that reason why do you continue to doubt?

     I will suppose another reason, namely, that you yourself have been to God with earnest prayer, seeking salvation and trusting in Jesus, and yet you have been refused. Now, I am sure that that is not so — absolutely sure. I remember the instance of a man who did not even believe in God, or, at least, he thought he did not, but he was aroused to a sense of his danger, and he went to God with some such prayer as this: “O God,” he said, “if there be a God, convince me of thy being. Lead me to thyself, if it be that I have sinned against thee, and thou art angry with me; and I fear it is so. And if thou hast sent thy Son to be an atonement for sin, let me know the power of that atonement.” He said that that was all he dared to say at first; but he ended in solid faith and in a renewed heart and life. No matter how far off a man may be from God, if there be a hearty and earnest seeking after him through Jesus Christ, he must find him. You have not tried it: I am sure you have not tried it. If you had done so you must have succeeded. Were it possible that a man had tried simple trust in Christ, and were not saved, then, indeed, he might give a reason why he doubts. But you have no such reason.

     I cannot think of any other, except that you have been informed that the blood of Jesus Christ has lost its power. Have you been assured that the gospel is abrogated? Have you been given to understand that the New Testament is a dead letter? Have you been persuaded that the gates of mercy are shut? Have you been led to believe that the invitations of grace are no more to be given? “Oh, no,” say you; “our state were wretched indeed, if that were the case.” Well, then, brother, as long as there is blood in the fountain, wherefore dost thou doubt its power to cleanse thee? As long as there is good news for sinners, why dost thou write bitter things against thyself? As long as a promise stands, and there is the invitation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,” wherefore dost thou doubt? Surely, if these things be as the book declares — that the Lord is ready to have mercy upon the very chief of sinners, who come and put their trust in Jesus Christ— you have no cause whatever to start back.

     Well, now, I am inclined here to quit your reasons, as I cannot suppose any others that are not conspicuously false. But I can imagine that you suppose that you have such great and special sins that you cannot think Christ can save you. Now, I undertake to say this from a very wide experience and observation of persons converted to God, — that if you will mention any sin that you have committed, I will mention someone who fell into that same sin, and who has been saved from it; if you mention the peculiar aggravations connected with your life, I think that even my own observation will enable me to mention some person who, if not exactly in that form, yet, in some other equally bad, has gone as far into sin as you have done, and yet has been saved, who, though guilty of crimes unmentionable, has yet been washed in the blood of the Lamb and made whiter than snow. O beloved, we cannot be telling you always of what we know, but we do sometimes delight to think that there are cases in holy Scripture which we may tell of as much as we like. There is cruel, savage Manasseh; there is blood-thirsty, threatening-breathing Saul; there is the woman that was a sinner; and there is the dying thief that rejoiced to find cleansing in the wounds of Christ. And why should not you be forgiven? There is no cause for doubt.

     “But my point,” says one, “is, Can this be for me?” You believe the Gospel is true, but you doubt whether it is for you. Well, no; it is not for you, if you are not a sinner. If thou canst say, “I am not guilty,” then farewell to all hope, for Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. If you are a sinner, surely he came to save such as you are. The blessings of the gospel covenant are directed to the lost. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Can you not get in there? Perhaps you remember Mr. Whitfield’s speech to his brother, who had long been in distress of mind, who said at last, across the table, “George, I am lost.” George said, “I am glad to hear it,” and answering his brother’s startled expression, he continued, “because the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was loot.” That brief utterance of the gospel lifted his brother out of despair into a clear and abiding hope in Jesus Christ. Perhaps you have heard of Mr. Whitfield again, in the Countess of Huntingdon’s house, when some great lord complained to her ladyship that Mr. Whitfield had used most extraordinary language in his last sermon, most repulsive to men of taste. Mr. Whitfield said he was there to answer for himself, and he asked what the expression was that he had used. “Why,” said the nobleman, “you said that Jesus Christ was willing to receive the devil’s castaways.” “Yes,” he said, “I did say that, and I mean to say it again. Did your ladyship observe that I was called out of the room a few minutes ago because the bell rang?” “Yes,” said the Countess. “And when I went to the door,” continued Mr. Whitfield, “a poor creature stood there who had been living in a state of sin, and had come to such a condition that even those that associated with her before were unwilling to come near her. She had become unfit even for the lowest work to which the devil himself could put her, and she found her old companions had cast her away. She heard me preach in Tottenham Court, and use that expression. It exactly fitted her case, she felt that she was one of the castaways of the devil himself, and so she sought to tell of pardoning grace and dying love.” You see, then, that Christ can save to the uttermost. Ah, it is so; it is so. If you have gone far into sin, weep over it; confess it before God with deep repentance, but come to Jesus Christ, just as you are; and, whoever you may be, there is no room for doubting. The door of the ark was a big door. There was room for the hare to go through, who went in quickly, and room for the snail to go through, with his slow pace; but there was plenty of roam for the elephant when he came marching along; there was a chamber on purpose for him, and fodder on purpose for him. And so, ye elephantine sinners, there is a door big enough for you to come into the house of mercy; there is provision made, and a place for you; and without you the company will not be complete within the ark of saving grace.

     May God bless that open declaration of the gospel to some poor devil’s castaway who has got into a corner of the tabernacle to-night. May such be able to find hope too.

     Well, now, I think I hear another say, “But I have a cause for doubt which has not yet been mentioned. I think I can guess it. You doubt because you have so many times refused Christ, that you say you cannot expect him to receive you now. That is the reason, is it not? “I have gone into great sin; sir,” you say, or, “I have been trying to save myself by my self-righteousness and my good works. And I cannot expect him to receive me now.” You think Christ is like the sons of men, such as you have known. Once a man went to a stable-keeper, and asked him what would be the price of a horse and gig for the day. “So much,” he answered. “The enquirer went round the town to see if he could not get one cheaper, and when he found that he could not make a better bargain, he came back, and said that he would have the one which he had asked for at the first. “No,” said the owner, “you will not. You have been going everywhere else, and now you may go where you have been. I do not want your custom.” You fancy that Jesus Christ is like that, do you? You have been round to Moses and asked him the expense, and you find that you cannot meet the claims of the law; and you have been round to the pope, and asked him the price, and you find that ceremonies do not satisfy you. You have tried the Oxford way to heaven, and tried the Roman way to heaven, but they do not suit you. You cannot get there by them, and now you think you dare not come to Christ because you have so long neglected him. But you may come: he is willing to have you at any price. Nay, he is willing to have you at no price, and if you will come at no price— come without money and without price— he is still willing and able to receive you, for the gospel peals out yet these clarion notes, “Come and welcome! come and welcome! come and welcome! Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely!” O thou who doubtest Christ, wherefore dost thou doubt?

     Now I will say no more but this. The way to deal with this state of mind of everlasting doubt and hesitation is to end it— to end it once for all. Repent, dear hearer, and may the Spirit of God help you to do so now. Repent of ever having disbelieved the Son of God. Repent of ever having distrusted the blood of Jesus Christ. Repent of ever having doubted the power of the omnipotent Spirit of God.

     I know not to whom this word will come with power, but, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God, I command you to leave off doubting him, and to begin to believe in him at once. End your doubt without a moment’s deliberation. You believe Christ Jesus to be God. I know you do. You believe what the Scripture saith concerning him— that he is a Saviour able to save. Man, by the living God I charge thee do not perpetrate such an insult to Christ as to go on doubting him. Thou hast the burden of all thy sin, but then he is a Saviour. Trust him with it; trust him now. “No,” you say, “I will get home and pray.” Do not wait for that. I wish you to pray when you get home, as much as ever you like; but, first of all, believe in Jesus Christ. Trust him on the spot. “Oh,” says one, “it will be a venture.” Venture, then, friend: venture. “May I pass in by the gate of mercy?” says another. Pass through it, whether you may or not, for there never was a soul sent back for coming to Christ by mistake. Never was heard of such a thing as a soul attempting to pass in by the portal of faith, and Jesus Christ saying, “Ho, there! What are you at? You have no right to trust me. You are not one of my elect. You must go back, and you must not dare to trust me. You are not the kind of man I want.” There was never such a case known, and there never will be such a case, for Christ’s own words are, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” That is, any “him” in all the world that comes to Christ he never will, he never can, cast out. I would make a dash for it, sinner, if I were you. Sink or swim, neck or nothing, here it is. I do believe— I must believe— in Jesus Christ; and, if I perish, still it shall be clinging to his cross. You will never perish there. May the Lord of covenant mercy draw you to this to-night, or drive you to it. I care not which, so long as you get to it, and Christ becomes all in all to your souls. Let us pray for that.