Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 698
Delivered on Sunday Morning, July 1, 1866, by C. H. Spurgeon, at Cornwall Road Chapel, Bayswater
1 Peter 1:8,9.
A VERY formidable difficulty frequently besets earnest but uninstructed minds who are seeking the Savior. They do not find it difficult to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He is a Savior, that He is mighty to save—their difficulty lies in getting at Him. They believe that the medicine will cure, but their question is, how shall they drink it? They are convinced that a touch of the hem of the Savior’s garment would heal their diseases, but their question is how to touch. By what means shall they be brought into contact with Christ and a Savior become the Savior of their souls? The constant aim of the Gospel ministry should be to remove such difficulties as these out of the way of coming souls, and we shall try this morning, as God shall help us, to lift out that stone and fill up that miry place in the king’s highway that some may today be enabled to come to Jesus—understanding what that coming means—and exercising it before they leave this house.
It is very common to meet with persons who say, “I wish that I had heard the Savior—actually heard Him speak. If I could have listened to that matchless eloquence of which it is written, ‘Never man spoke like this Man,’ I should have been convinced, melted, led to penitence and inspired with faith. I wish I could have heard Him pronounce those words, ‘Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ I would have leaped from among the crowd, and I would have cried, ‘Master, I come! Your invitation draws me! Here I am, a heavy-laden sinner, give me rest.’ ”
You have also wished that you had been able literally to touch Him—to have put your finger into the print of the nails—and to have thrust your hand into His side. It seems to you that then you could have believed. If you might have been privileged with even the touch of the woman who did but touch the hem of His garment, much more if you might have been privileged to lean your head upon His bosom with John, you would then have believed, you think, as a matter of course, and there would have been no sort of difficulty in the way of your salvation. You have sighed, “Oh that I could have heard, have touched, and have seen Him! These would have been three pearly gates through which I might have come at Him. I could have reached Him then, if I might but have exercised my senses upon His blessed Person.”
Your soul has lingered over the thought of seeing Him. You have especially wondered whether it would have been possible to have seen Him upon Tabor with His garments glistening whiter than any fuller could have made them, and yet not have believed! You have thought it impossible! You have said, “If I could have been among the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane to have seen the bloody sweat and marked the tokens of the drops of blood on the frosty ground. And if I could, with tearful eyes have seen Him at the scourging and the spitting. If I could have wondered and wept with Mary at the foot of the Cross and seen the blood drop from His hands and feet, I should then have been saved! It would have been easy to believe if there had been something to see.”
Mark the fact that out of the mass who did see Jesus, and who did hear Him, few, very few believed. The crowd which gathered round the Crucifixion, which might seem to be the most moving scene in the story, were not bettered by what they saw. As the multitude gazed, instead of tears they yielded laughter! Instead of penitence they exhibited blasphemy! There they gathered, thousands of them of all sorts, the highest and the lowest, the intelligent and the uneducated, and all alike they spat the venom of their hatred upon the Crucified One. They cried, “If He is the Son of God, let Him come down from the Cross.” Seeing was not believing, but disbelieving and hating!
They had beheld His miracles before His being nailed to the Cross. They had seen dead Lazarus come forth from the tomb and marked those that had leprosy and other incurable diseases suddenly healed. They had, moreover, feasted upon the bread which He Himself had created for them, and yet they believed not. Why, then, do you conclude that you would have done so? There is nothing better in your heart than in the hearts of other men! Doubtless you would have seen all, and have been astonished and possibly affected—but the probabilities are that you would have remained what you are now, if not something worse—an unbeliever, an unsaved one.
Besides, it should never be forgotten that those who did believe in Jesus Christ in His own day had to get out of and beyond the sphere of the senses in order to believe. Let me show you what I mean. I am not certain that what they saw helped them to believe. I think it did the reverse. I grant you that to see the holiness and the self-consecration of the Lord Jesus must have had a convincing influence upon gracious hearts. But then, let me ask you, would the sight of the deep poverty of the Man of Sorrows lead you to believe in His Godhead? Would an association with Him in His rejection and dishonor lead you to believe in His celestial Glory?