Both these expressions, beloved friends, relate to the same transcendent subject. There is just this difference between them, that in ch. 17, the blessed One is anticipating the completeness of all that was about to be accomplished. He is looking forward to the work of the cross, the bearing of the judgment, the drinking of the cup of wrath, the enduring of the forsaking of God, the bearing of His people’s sins in His own body on the tree; He looks at it all as having been passed through by Himself, before it actually was done; He looks at it as done, as He was entitled to do, for He knew what was before Him, what He had undertaken; He is standing, as it were, in resurrection, and looking back, and He utters these precious, blessed words into His Father’s ears; verily there was no other ear that could appreciate that utterance, it was only God that could measure all that was conveyed in these precious words of Jesus, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” And then, when the history of this great reality had come out in all its solemnity, and the anticipation of it had passed into the literality of the fact, even when He was on the cross, as soon as He had drunken that dreadful cup that no one could drink but Himself, when He had passed through everything in order that no part of scripture should be unfulfilled, not merely that all the will of God might be done, but that the whole word of God might be maintained and fulfilled to the very letter; He said, “I thirst,” and they took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it to His lips, and when He had received the vinegar, He said, “It is finished.” So that what He had anticipated in chapter 17 passes into actual fact in chapter 19, “It is finished.” He used one word in the language in which He spoke, translated into three words in our Bibles, but one word passed from His blessed lips; oh, how expressive of everything (and that is the comfort of it for our souls tonight) that establishes God’s glory, and lays the basis for our everlasting security and blessing.
Now let me try and interest your hearts in all those things that lie around these utterances of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, first of all, observe that in John 17, the history of man as a responsible being down here upon earth is regarded as very nearly over: that history of responsibility, with all its failure, all its shortcomings, all its utter unsuitability to God, was drawing to a close, there had been really but one man, Adam, and he could never be made suitable to God. Do you believe that, beloved friends? It was impossible to make the first man suitable to God, he had been tried, let me say; Who tried him? God tried him. There is one great piece of intense ignorance and folly that men’s minds are willing to hold fast to, and that is that men are being tried now. It is all false, beloved friends. God is not testing man now, He is not trying man now. As long as God was dealing with him as a responsible being down here in the world, God was testing him. It was not a question then of salvation. The salvation of perishing sinners and the trial of responsible men are two distinct subjects, which you can never make one and the same thing; there is no identity between the two; more than that, the salvation of perishing sinners according to God’s own mind and heart was after the trial of responsible man. It was when man had been tested, as he was tested, in every conceivable shape and form, under every kind of administration and dealing of God. There had been no kind of testing that God had not subjected the creature to. Everything had been put in requisition by God Himself, so as to bring out the effect of the test. The last trial that man was subjected to was this, that God in lowly grace, in the Person of Jesus, was here amongst men. And though, thank God, there is no subject that is more precious to the heart of the Christian than to think of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ upon earth, to trace those precious footsteps in all their ways of mercy, and goodness, and love, the footprints which He has left, as it were, upon the desert sands of this poor world, to trace the mercy that was imprinted upon this howling wilderness in every footfall of that blessed One, yet remember this, that Christ, as down here in the world in all His grace, and preciousness, and goodness, and mercy, and tenderness, and kindness, only brought out the vileness and reprobate nature of men as represented by that one Adam, the first Adam; for there had been only one man before God as a representative, and that was Adam. And the very mercy, goodness, grace and kindness of Jesus as man down here, God revealed in lowly grace, only elicited this, that there was not the smallest appreciation of the goodness that was not in any human heart, but which was presented so blessedly in the path of Jesus. And that is what makes the life of Christ on earth the most solemn test of man in every part of his life.
I was speaking last Lord’s day evening how that came out in Pilate’s questions. His own conscience was uneasy, Pilate would have given worlds to have let Jesus go free; if he could have kept his position in the world, he would have liberated that blessed man: see how Pilate was tested; what tested him? Jesus. What tested the Jews? Jesus. It was He who tested every class of men. There never had been such a test as He. It has been said, and said truly, that a living Christ on earth is a testing Christ. Oh, beloved friends, we cannot have that pressed too much upon our thoughts. They spat upon Him, they rejected Him, they refused Him, they hated Him, they scorned Him, they cast Him out, they nailed Him up to a gibbet; you did it, I did it, all classes of men did it; we were all represented there. Around the cross were the representatives of all classes of man; there you and I were, there our ruthless hands nailed that precious One; we spat in His face, we said, “Not this man, but Barnabas”; we refused Him. And that was what Christ brought out and elicited by His perfections. I do not know anything more solemn than to think that the goodness, the absolute perfectness of Jesus, called out the vileness of man’s heart. “For my love,” He says, “they gave me hatred”; “they hated me without a cause”; you will find amongst men, that taking man with man, there is some sort of appreciation, even in men who have not got goodness them- selves, of goodness when they see it in another; but men did not appreciate the goodness that shone in Jesus.
Now if you look at John 17, there is a little word there that seems very simple, but how much is conveyed in it! Observe the attitude of the Lord Jesus in John 17? “He lifted up his eyes to heaven.” Do you think that is a meaningless expression? What did it mean? All is over here on earth; it is all over with man as man; man is ruined; the first man Adam involved the whole race in the ruin of his fall, and involves the inheritance that was set under him vanity as the result of his fall. And look abroad upon the whole face of the earth at this present moment, and what do you find? A groaning creation. What is the reason of it; why should this earth groan? It was subjected as an inheritance under the headship of the first Adam. If I look at the cross, I see the utter alienation of man’s heart from God; and if I look over the face of this whole world, there is not a groan that goes out of it (and God knows it is a place out of which groans are continually going, and on which tears are continually falling) which does not distinctly declare man’s ruin. Jesus is not insensible, to the groans of a groaning creation, and in that coming day,
“He’ll bid the whole creation smile,
And hush its groan.”
Do you think Christ is insensible to its groaning now? Think of what it was to Him as His eyes looked over the whole thing. There was not in it a single bright spot. “He lifted up. his eyes to heaven,” as much as to say, All hope must come from there now; all here is closed, the inheritance defiled; man a ruin. Some way or another, there is something attractive to people about ruins; they like to look at ruins; but think of this ruin! And look at the attitude of’ Jesus; “He lifted up his eyes to heaven,” and anticipating the work He was about to finish, He says, “I have glorified thee”; that is. the first thing. He says to the, Father, You were outraged in the scene of your own creation; man, the creature of your hand, the noblest structure of your creative power, outraged you in the scene, that was rolled from the Creator’s hands; I have glorified you, I have vindicated you in every righteous, holy claim on the earth, “I have finished the work which thou gavest, me to do.”
Now look for a moment at two or three things in connection with Jesus taking this place here, because it is most precious for our souls as we have to do. with Him as a Savior. First of all, speaking of Him now as a man down here upon earth, He was the only one that perfectly met the whole heart of God. What a wonderful thing for our souls to think that all the purposes, all the thoughts, all the desires, all the longings of the heart of God in a man were perfectly met by Jesus. There was one Man, very God, but very man, as truly a man as He was verily “God over all, blessed for ever,” this blessed One as man down here upon earth, perfectly met every thought, every desire, every longing of the heart of God. I am not speaking of the relationship in which He was as the eternal Son ever in the Father’s bosom, but of His having become man. You remember that wonderful, beauteous anthem which was sung by the angels when He was born as a babe, and touched our nature, so to speak, in its very weakest point; He did not come out like Adam, a full-grown man from the hand of God, but He passed through all the stages of human life here, He was born a babe, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger in all the lowliness and all the weakness of the circumstances in which men were found down here. And you remember what that anthem was, those notes which reached up to heaven, “Glory to God in the highest.” “I have glorified thee on the earth,” connect the beginning of His life with the end of it, if you please here. “Glory to God in the highest,” said the heavenly host, “and on earth peace, good pleasure in men. Why? Because His Son had become a man; the complacency of God in the poor race as expressed by that blessed One becoming a man down here “good pleasure in man.” And although peace was not made good at that moment, and it awaited the cross to give it a foundation, yet how precious it is to see that the state of blessing was born in the birth of the wonderful child, that wonderful child, wonderful God, wonderful man! Though the making it good awaited the cross, yet there was the whole thing presented in His own blessed Person who was to give it accomplishment in the fulness of time, so much so, that it could be said, “Glory to God in the highest”—on earth, poor earth, the scene of carnage and war and bloodshed—“on earth peace, good pleasure in man.” Christ perfectly met every thought of the heart of God.
But there is another thing. He Himself, the source of all the blessing, was tested and tried. I think it is an immense comfort to be able to say to people, Do you know that the Savior who came from heaven, who came as the sent One of God, as the expression of the Father’s heart for poor, wretched, perishing sinners in this world, was tried here by everything. Tell me one single thing that Jesus was not tried by. You remember how in that beautiful prophecy of Isaiah, God says to Israel, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone.” He was tried by men, tried by His disciples, tried by the circumstances of the world; Satan tried Him, He was tested in every conceivable way. Now just think of these things, and I will show you the preciousness of that when we come to look at the completeness of the work. The One who did the work was the One that met the heart of God. And the One that met the heart of God was tested Himself in every conceivable shape and form, to bring out the perfectness that was found in Him. Just as when Adam was tested it brought out his ruin; when Jesus was tested it brought out His perfectness. He was the second Man, because He was to displace the first. He was both the second Man and the last Adam. Looking back, He was the second Man, for He was about to displace the history of the first. Looking forward, He was the last Adam, for there was to be no other form of man but that Man in His blessed, victorious, glorious character. That is the new pattern of man and the new place of man when Jesus rose from the dead, and in that sense He is the last Adam. He was the second Man in order to sweep out in judgment (and through bearing it Himself), and to remove from the holy eye of God, the first man, the author of ruin and misery. And mark, beloved brethren, in order to show you the completeness of His work, He was about to remove that offending thing from that holy eye. Think of the holy eye of God! Think of the completeness of the work that met the holy eye of God. He was about to remove in righteousness that offending thing that had been tested and brought out in all its ruin, He was about to remove that completely from God’s holy eye in righteousness, through bearing the judgment.
There was another thing. In the glory of His Person, He had divine rights. Did not everything belong to Him here? Have you ever thought of that little word they said when He was born? It is wonderful how the preciousness of the words of scripture escape our thoughts “Where is he that is born king of the Jews?” What is the meaning of that? That that glory pertained to Him in right of His Person. I quite admit it was an earthly glory, pertaining to Israel as an earthly people. It was the very title that was put upon His cross in the three great languages of the then known world, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. But when the inquiry was made about Him at His birth,” Where is he that is born king of the Jews?” why everything belonged to Him in virtue of His divine rights, and Person, and glories; it was all His, He was the true Messiah.
But mark, when He came here, He was entirely dependent upon God for everything, and entirely subject to God in everything, He trusted God in everything; and more than that, He surrendered everything; it was all His, and He gave it all up. Look at these precious characteristics of Him who came to be the Savior. See what was displayed in His Person before you come to the work at all. Because that work, precious and full as it is, blessed and substantial ground and foundation for our souls before God, that work I say has all the permanence, and all the blessedness and all the preciousness, and all the value of the Person that did it. I cannot separate His work from the Person that did it; I cannot separate that Person from His work. He was competent to meet the heart of God; He was tested here before men, and His perfectness came out; He owned everything, and He gave it all up; in the world that His own hands had made He was the dependent Man; cast upon God in everything, perfect in subjection, perfect in trust, and perfect in surrender; but not a single creature did He bring by that life of perfectness to stand in that position before God, not one. On the contrary, the whole state and condition of man’s heart was only brought out in all its native distance, and alienation, and darkness before God. The very goodness of Jesus displayed, and manifested, and exposed the vileness of man.
And then, when we come to the cross (for I pass over the intervening part of that precious life), and when we look at this utterance in John 19, which declares the history of the finished work, just think of all that is summed up in that. You get the sufferings of Jesus brought out in the other gospels: His sufferings as man in Luke, His sufferings as the victim in Matthew, and all the enmity and hatred of the Jewish people towards Him right on to His death. But John does not throw into prominence the sufferings of the Man, nor the hatred of His own people and all their opposition to Him, but what John delights to show us is how the One that was his beloved, carried Himself in all the terrible moments of pressure through which He passed. Truly it is a divine Person who is presented all through the gospel, yet also John lingers in affection as he presents to faith the conduct, the mind, the character of that blessed One who was dear to his heart. And look at it here. He took the vinegar, and when He had taken the vinegar, everything being accomplished, the whole thing gone through, the cup of wrath having been drained to its dregs, He said, “It is finished.” Now allow me to ask you, Have you ever sat down before God in the quietness of your own room and put the question to your own heart, What is the meaning of that, “It is finished.” It is a word we frequently hear; people speak of the finished work of Jesus, the finished work of the cross, what does it mean? Let us look simply at those words. What is the meaning of “it”? “It”—what?
First of all, God’s glory is secured. Oh, what a thing for your heart as a poor sinner! Because, when the iron of conviction gets into your soul, you know you have to do with God, and there is a moment coming when every man (mark the word) shall give an account of himself to God. Whom did you sin against? Whose laws have you trampled on? Whose word have you cast behind your back? Whose name have you refused, and perhaps blasphemed and despised? Whom have you offended? Men? No; God. O sinner, unforgiven sinner, you that are not ready to meet God, it is God you have to meet. It is not death; no, nor even is it judgment. I believe the heart of man is of that stuff that the devil can even steel it in its blindness and darkness against death and judgment. A story is told of one who was notorious in the annals of crime, and who was a perfect terror in his day, a fearless man himself, but dreaded and feared by every one else; this man was tried and condemned for murder, and as he lay in his condemned cell awaiting the moment of execution, there was no apparent sense of the condition he was in till the night previous to his execution. But that night he walked his cell with a restless step, up and down, as the hours flew by as it were with lightning wings, and for the first time in his life that man seemed to be awaked to something like the sense of fear. And when the warders said to him, “You afraid? Why, we thought you feared nothing, neither man, nor devil, nor hell, nor judgment, nor eternity, nor anything, that you were steeled against it all; what are you afraid of now?” He replied, “It is not death I am afraid of; do not think that; but at eight o’clock to-morrow morning I have to meet God.” Oh, beloved hearers, it is that God you have to meet; it is to God you will have to give an account of yourself; it is God you will have to stand before; it is to God you will have to bow your knee? “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then,” says the Holy Ghost in the New Testament, “every one of us all give account of himself to God.”
And oh! beloved, think how blessed it is that just as that is the responsibility of the sinner, just as that is the thing that presses upon the sinner, so here, when I look upon this precious finished work of Jesus, there is what I get in that little word “it”—simple word, but oh how comprehensive, how full, how perfect!—I get the claims of a holy God met, the One that was outraged by man’s sin glorified, God glorified, and so glorified as He never could have been, even if the whole race of mankind were consigned to the depths of an undying hell, which was the rightful due of men—God glorified on that cross, glorified by the sinless One, glorified by His bearing the judgment, even that man who never did anything wrong, glorified by the spotless man there. As that poor thief said, he who was so vile, he who was so bad that the world was getting rid of him, a malefactor, even he turns to Jesus and says, There is perfection, you have done nothing amiss, despised by men, but you are a king, mocked now with a crown of thorns and a purple robe, nailed to a gibbet like a malefactor in the place of shame and scorn, but you have a kingdom, and you have a crown, and the moment is coming when you will be king; Lord, let me wrap myself in the eternal perfections of the spotless Man hanging upon that cross. And, beloved friends, there is what God’s salvation is—a poor thief in the very moment of death, at the very extremity of human life, turns to that spotless One who was bearing the judgment of a holy God due to sin, and says, as it were, of Jesus, There is perfection, let me wrap myself in the folds of that eternal perfection. And mark the answer of Jesus to that. What did He say to that poor, Wretched creature? unintelligent as he was, not the faintest ray of human hope shining on that poor, wretched man’s soul, but Christ was everything to him; he did not know much about Christ, but he clung to Christ, he trusted Christ, he leaned on Christ; he could say nothing good of himself, nay, rather he condemned himself, but he was all right in confidence and trust; his soul clings to that mighty Savior. And how does Jesus answer him? “Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” That is the meaning of the cross; that is the meaning of those words, “It is finished”; that is what “It is finished” can do for a poor, wretched, vile sinner. “This day,” says the blessed Lord, not the future thing, not the day that is coming when I shall have the crown, but “this day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” On what ground? how? Because Jesus finished that work for him, Jesus glorified God about that poor, wretched man’s sin, gave to God in righteousness a full equivalent for all the sins, all the transgressions of that poor thief down here, for the vileness and misery of that man, and He could take that man into paradise that very day, because He bore his sins there in His own body on the tree.
And mark, more than this. He says not only “it” as involving the glory of God, and the bearing of sins, and the meeting of God’s holy, righteous claims, but He says more, “It is”—not that it will be, He does not look on to the future, He brings it into one great eternal now, “It is finished,” once and for all, there and then, the whole work, the whole ground of God’s glory and the sinner’s everlasting salvation.
I shall never forget, for they left a deep impression on my heart never to be effaced while life lasts, the words of the one whom God used many years ago to awaken me to a sense of my need of Christ as a Savior, a distinguished, earnest, beloved servant of God, a devoted minister of Christ, who preached Christ faithfully for many years as the sinner’s Savior; when my beloved friend and father came to die, I shall never forget the words that passed from his lips. He said, “When I saw how this illness of mine would turn, I put my foot down on the platform that God had graciously set me upon through the finished work of Christ, years and years ago, and I found that platform was perfectly safe.” Oh, beloved brethren, think of that! When he came to die, he did not begin to think about himself; it was not himself, it was not his life. Another who was present said to him, “Just think of your devoted life; think of how you have preached Christ.” The dying man lifted up his hand, and said, “Hush; not a word now but Christ, nothing now but Christ and His blood.”
Now, beloved friends, there is what it is to trust in Jesus; that work is a platform, a divine superstructure God puts under your feet, that is as immovable as Christ’s cross could make it, as eternal in its stability as the blood of Jesus could make it. I often hear people say, “I wonder very much whether it will be all right with me; I wonder whether the root of the matter is in me.” Well, I tell you for your comfort it is not but thank God it is in Christ; the root of the matter is there, the perfection and completeness of the work is there. Never mind about yourself; but mark this: Your best, your only qualification for the salvation that the Christ has accomplished is just this, vileness, good-for-nothingness, hell deservingness, emptiness, not a single reason, neither root nor branch, in you, a poor, wretched, vile, miserable sinner, but everything perfect and blessed in Jesus. And that is what God brings together, emptiness in the sinner and completeness in the salvation, fulness in the work and complete undeservingness in the person that wants it. Wonderful combination! barrenness and misery in me, fulness and completeness in the work that was accomplished on the cross 1,800 years ago, and has never lost its power, and never will lose it. We have often sung those sweet words,
“Dear dying Lamb Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransom’d church of God
Be saved to sin no more.”
There it is, perfect, permanent and complete. But there is another thing in these words, not merely God’s glory, and the perfection of that which can wash our souls from every spot and stain of sin, but Satan’s head was there bruised. And may I speak a word for a moment to God’s own dear people, because I know there are many here tonight, and it is a cheer to see those who have tasted the preciousness of Christ, and to know that the same Savior is dear to them who is dear to one’s. self. Beloved, what an immense comfort this is for the soul of a poor, timid, trembling child of God, the devil is a beaten foe, the devil’s head has been bruised; the death of Jesus bruised that head, according to the promise that was made, not to Adam, but to the seed of the woman, “It shall bruise thy head.” That is the announcement God made in Satan’s ears, the woman’s seed who should come to do this work, shall bruise thy head; and thou shalt bruise his heel; that is, the Lord should go into death, really the power that Satan had acquired through man’s sin, he was to bruise the Savior’s heel. The Lord Jesus became subject to death, but by death He bruised Satan’s head; or as it is expressed in that hymn—He was
“Death of death, and hell’s destruction.”
Through death He annulled him that had the power of death; He submitted to go down in His grace under the waves of death, that through death He might annul him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and now mark these words, “and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Are you afraid of death? I remember the time that I would not look at a corpse for worlds, a terror passed through my heart at the sight; and it was not that I was afraid of hell, I knew the blood of Jesus secured my soul against the flames of hell, but I trembled at death. Why? My soul was not in the full victory of Christ’s triumph, in the full effects of the completeness of those precious words I am speaking about, I did not see the magnificent extent of “It is finished.” I did not take into my soul the area of blessing which such words cover; God’s glory secured, sin purged, Satan’s head bruised in death, so that the devil is now a beaten foe. And that is the reason why he works in wiles now; he did not always. When did he resort to that mode of warfare, when did he begin his wiles? After the victory of Jesus. Look at the beautiful type of it in that wonderful fifth chapter of Joshua. When the Jordan was passed, and God had brought the people over, and dried up the waters of the river, which is a picture of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished for His people, and the drying up of the power of death, it is said that when the Canaanites, the people of the land, “heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more.
Thank God, it is the victory of the cross that has taken the spirit out of the foe, and brought in fear into the enemy. Why should you have fear? It is the enemies of the cross that ought to have the fear, and not those that are trusting in that blessed One. What becomes us in the presence of “It is finished”? Trust and confidence; I can trust when I see that it is done, I know the way people talk; they say, “I wonder whether it is all done for me.” Well, if it is not, it will never be done at all. Did Jesus say that part of it had been done, and part of it has to be done? No; He said it is done, all finished, perfected, settled for ever. When? Eighteen hundred years ago. On that cross, where He was alone, forsaken, He completed that work, bowed His blessed head in death, and dismissed His spirit as a divine Person who had a right over it, finished the whole work, made peace, glorified God and His Father, completed His work, bruised Satan’s head, and did it for every sinner here who will simply come and trust that blessed One, and trust that finished work. Have you come? That is the question. If you were called upon tonight to pass through death (you may be, God only knows), are you ready? you may be the tree of the forest that is marked for death, just as you may see a woodman pass through a forest and mark a certain tree with an axe, it may be a towering tree, beautiful leaves and branches and blossoms, but the axe ‘will be at the root of that tree soon, the mark is there; and you may be that tree tonight; even though you are saying to yourself, “I am not going to die, there is no faintness in my heart, no qnivering in my frame, I have a long life before me yet”; ah! but you may be marked for death, and the question I put to you tonight is, Are you ready? If the word were to come to you now, as it came to Hezekiah, “Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live,” are you ready? Are you ready to meet God? And remember, if you do not die, sinner, Christ is coming. He came and finished that work, and yet there you are, still unconverted and unhappy; do. not tell me you are not unhappy, you have not got a real bit of true happiness in your bosom how could you with that dread uncertainty before you, that leap in the dark? You are not happy. There is many a miserable and broken, heart under a gay and smiling face. Most deceitful are the looks of people; oh, how many hearts there are with the gnawings of hell there, uncertainty, doubt, misgiving, and blackness over the future! And you, dear unconverted people, that is where you are tonight. But I preach to you the peace that Jesus made by the blood of His cross; He made peace; mark that, it does not say that He is making peace in the heavens, but He made it by the blood of His cross. He Himself in heaven is the evidence that He made it, He is our peace; and when He came back after death into this world He preached it. He is the peace, He made the peace, and He preached the peace. And will you tell me, if that is the case, that I am not to have it, that I cannot have it? What was the sense of His making it if a poor, wretched sinner like myself could not have it? What did He make it for? He made it for me to have it, and thank God I have it, and because I know what it is I preach it to you. “We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen.
I was called once, many years ago, to visit in the fever sheds of one of the large hospitals of a city, a poor girl that had been brought in there in the very last stage of malignant typhus, with but very little of her senses left. Thank God, she was saved, she was washed from her sins in the precious blood of Christ, and she allayed all my anxiety about her state by what were very nearly her last words on earth, and precious words they are in my memory: she just repeated into my ear in broken sentences with her life as it were ebbing away, these two passages, “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to. be the Savior”; “We have known and believed the love that God hath unto us.” O friends, what a precious testimony to leave the world with, just to go out of it in the confidence of the love of which Christ was the expression, and. in confidence of heart in that Savior that was entitled to that confidence.
May the Lord grant that you may rest in that work for yourselves; the Lord grant that you may take that stand as poor sinners to receive it simply from Him. And do not be troubling yourselves, as people often do, “I do not know whether I have got the right sort of faith, the right kind of belief.” Never mind about that.
It reminds me of what I read lately about a poor man in the street who was dying of hunger, and some one met him and put into his hands a great deal more than could supply his needs at that moment. Some one saw him afterwards, and said, “What has made the change with you? You seem quite different. “Oh!” he said, “I met a gentleman in the street, and he has put into my hand the very thing that meets all my need.” “How do you know?” He replied, “He put it into my hand.” “But how do you know that you have the right kind of hand? He replied, “I don’t care what kind of hand I have, but I have the right kind of money.”
You talk about the right faith or the wrong faith, but faith is faith. Now remember as to peace—Jesus made it, Jesus is it, Jesus preached it; and now you may have it.
The Lord grant you may put out the empty hand of faith tonight, and take the fulness of that salvation and that peace through Jesus Christ.