Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 692
Delivered on Sunday Morning, May 20, 1866, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“Joy and peace in believing.’” Romans 15:13.
I WOULD address myself, this morning, to a special class and if there should be no spiritual instruction for others, I trust that they will follow what is said with their prayers, that the word may be useful to those for whom it is mainly intended. There are a large number of persons who profess to have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ but who assert that they have no joy and peace in believing. They do not make this profession by union with the Christian Church or in any open manner, but when they are pushed upon the matter of personal salvation, they will sometimes tell us, “I do believe in Christ, but still I am so unhappy, I am so miserable, that I cannot believe that I am saved.”
That statement being tantamount to this—that the Word of God declares that whoever believes in Jesus is not condemned—but they assert that they have believed in Jesus and nevertheless they are haunted with fears of condemnation which lead them to believe that they cannot have been delivered from the wrath to come. Now, I shall suppose that the persons whom I am trying to address this morning are sincerely anxious to be saved and that they are not raising this difficulty by way of cavil. If they are cavilers, I shall not attempt to deal with them this morning.
Such persons need a discourse to themselves. I am speaking to tender hearts, or to those who desire to have tender hearts—to those who have their faces towards Jerusalem though as yet they travel in the dark. If you are really desirous to obtain joy and peace through believing, we trust God may bless you to the obtaining of it this morning. We suppose, also, that the persons whom we are addressing are not laboring under any bodily sickness such as might bring on hypochondria feelings and those despondencies which are rather the symptoms of physical disease than marks of spiritual feeling.
I believe there are some persons who are beyond the reach of the preacher and who must be dealt with, if treated at all successfully, by the ordinary physician. Their case has gone beyond the limits of argument. Their mind has got into a disordered condition and the body, also, and therefore both body and mind must be set right by some other means before it is likely that spiritual reasons will prevail upon them. Provided you are sane people in some measure of health, and that you are sincere persons, we think that with God’s blessing we may be the means of comfort to you this morning.
I know you would be willing to suffer anything sooner than that the Gospel should be evilly spoken of. But it is evilly spoken of through you, and necessarily so, because you cannot expect carnal persons to have a discernment between your religious feelings, which are right, and those which are wrong. They set your present despondency down to religious feelings of some sort and with one sweeping verdict they are apt to condemn religion altogether.
Now you do not wish this, surely for their own good—for you desire them to find peace. With all your anxiety for yourself you are not selfish—you wish others to enjoy peace in Christ. You would consent, I believe, to the loss of your right eye if your husband and children, if your wife and friends might be reconciled to God by the blood of the Cross. At present, however you are standing in the way—and instead of assisting by proving that “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,” you are doing an injury to those dear immortal souls by the misrepresentation which you give them. I grant again that this is done unwittingly, but alas, you are as surely injuring them as if you designed to do them evil.
But a second remark I must also venture upon, namely that you must take care, while valuing joy and peace, that you do not overestimate them. Remember that joy and peace are, though eminently desirable, not infallible evidences of safety. There are many persons who have great joy and much peace who are not saved. Their joy springs from a mistake, and their peace is the false peace which does not rest upon the rock of Divine Truth but upon the sand of their own imaginations. It is certainly a good sign that spring is come, that you find the weather to be so warm, but there are very mild days in winter.
I must not infer because the heat of the sun is at such and such a degree, that therefore it is necessarily spring. And, on the other hand, we have had very cold days this week—cold days which, if we had to judge by such evidences, might have convinced us that we were rather in November than in May. And so, joy and peace are like fine sunny days. They come to those that have no faith that are in the winter of their unbelief, and they may not visit you who have believed. Or, if they come, they may not stay, for there may be cold weather in May and there may be some sorrow and some distress of mind even to a truly believing soul.