Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1396
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, January 13, 1878
“Come, and let us return unto the Lord. For He has torn, but He will heal us. He has struck us, but He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us. On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight.” Hosea 6:1,2.
[Mr. Spurgeon was exceedingly unwell and his voice painfully weak, hence the pause in the middle of the sermon, during which the congregation sang part of a hymn to enable the preacher to gain strength enough to resume his discourse. This was the last sermon before Mr. Spurgeon’s departure from home to obtain needed rest. It has been revised by Mr. Spurgeon at Mentone. The sermons are continued regularly every week.]
IF man had never sinned, what delightful communion there would have been between him and God! A fairy vision rises before us of loving obedience and condescending fellowship, holy delight and boundless favor, lowly adoration and fatherly smile, perfect bliss and infinite complacency. Alas! Alas! It is no more than a vision! God would have treated man with familiarity and indulgence, lavishing favor and honor upon him. The Garden of Eden, fair as were its glades and lovely as were its flowers, was but a faint image of the things prepared for man had he continued in loyalty to God— inconceivable delights would have filled up the days of our life on earth had not the serpent’s trail come across our nature and slimed it over with sin.
I shall not attempt any picture of man dwelling with God and God revealing Himself to man in new forms—always increasing man’s knowledge and, at the same time, causing His bliss to overflow. Alas! That dream has never been realized. That dangerous fruit which hung upon the tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil has been plucked and eaten and we will not pause to rehearse the sad story of the foul iniquities and the countless ills which have come upon mankind and severed man from his God. Because of the Fall and man’s depravity, Justice now comes in with his rod and sword and changes the complexion of our life.
God deals very graciously with man, but not at all after the fashion in which He might have dealt with him—He cannot, now, perpetually smile, but is led, by His holiness, to look on him with wrathful countenance. The loving God, compelled by love, itself, frowns at sin. He threatens, He denounces. His justice and holiness lead Him to use rough words towards His erring creatures. He does more—in infinite love He chastens as well as rebukes. Instead of fatherly caresses, the great Lord wisely takes down the rod and lays it on the backs of those whom He most truly loves. “He scourges every son whom He receives.”
Those nearest to His heart and most approved of His soul among the sons of Adam have, nevertheless, to feel that “our God is a consuming fire.” Placed in the crucible, they are thrust into the white heat of the furnace and there are they called to suffer that their dross may be removed. If thus the Lord is severe to His own people, what are His dealings with the ungodly? “God is angry with the wicked every day.” The wise men of modern thought have made a new god of late—one of those gods newly come up that our fathers knew not and who is quite unknown to the Bible—as false a god as Apollo or Baal! The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob these deep thinkers cannot endure, but if you say that God is angry with the wicked every day, these modern god-makers tell you that He is too loving for that—that He cannot possibly be angry, but loves all, has redeemed all, and will, in the long run, save all—including Satan, himself!
They adore a god made of putty or of wax—plastic, effeminate, molluscous—with no masculine faculty about him and no quality that entitles him to the respect of just and honest men. For a being who cannot be angry at wrong-doing is destitute of one of the essential virtues and a moral ruler who is not angry with the wicked—who refuses to punish
crime—is not Divine. We find no such God as this modern saccharine idol when we come to search the Scriptures, for there the true God says, “If you walk contrary to Me, I will walk contrary to you.” “To the froward He will show Himself froward.” “Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them.”
He is revealed as a God who “will by no means spare the guilty,” but declares that every transgression and iniquity shall have its just punishment of reward. Since evil obtained sway over the human race, God walks towards men, therefore, not at all as He might have done if men had never fallen. He speaks to them in the stern voice of a judge and handles them as one who sees the need of a rod. He treats men not so roughly as they deserve, for He is infinitely tender and gentle, but still with such severity as becomes necessary to show that He cannot smile on transgression. The conduct of God towards man is not like His dealing with the angels—not like His dealing with cherubim and seraphim but, according to our text—He tears, He strikes, He kills.