Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3175
“You will keep him in perfect peace (Margin: peace, peace), whose mind is stayed on You: because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3.
[This Address is an interesting souvenir of an afternoon visit paid by Mr. Spurgeon to an invalid at Mentone, the late Giles Shaw, Esq., of Bewdley—brother-in-law of Miss Frances Ridley Havergal. The Address was delivered without preparation and followed immediately the singing of the hymn upon which it is based.]
[A Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon Isaiah 26:3 is #1818, Volume 31—THE SONG OF A CITY AND THE PEARL OF PEACE. Expositions of the whole Chapter are included with Sermons #2430, Volume 41—CHRISTIANS AND THEIR COMMUNION WITH GOD and #2713, Volume 47—WALKING IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD]
AS WE have met together in this sick-chamber and you all wish me to talk with you, we will thoughtfully run over the hymn which you have just been singing. It is No. 730 in Sacred Songs and Solos, or No. 7 in The Christian Choir. May the Divine Teacher lead us into mines of the Truth of God and show us the deep things of God!—
“Peace! Perfect peace! In this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.” Peace, yes, perfect peace! What a Heaven lies within! Peace gleaming with a heavenly light even in the midnight of this world of care. We cannot enjoy true peace as long as sin remains upon the conscience. As well might the ocean be quiet while a tempest is raging, or the sea bird rest on the wave when the storm is mixing earth and sky! The more the conscience is enlightened, the more surely will it forbid peace as long as sin remains, for its honest verdict is that sin deserves God’s wrath and must be punished. Every upright understanding assents to the justice of that dispensation by which “every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward.” To me, when convinced of sin, it seemed that God could not be God if He did not punish me for my sins. Because of this deep-seated conviction, that great Gospel Truth, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin,” became a heavenly message, sweeter than the music of angels’ harps! Then I saw, with glad surprise, that God in Christ Jesus is just and the Justifier of him whom believes.” To me, the glorious Doctrine of Substitution was a well in the desert and it is still so. I believe it with my whole soul. An honest man, if he is in debt, will always be in trouble until the liability is removed. But when his debt is paid, he leaps into liberty and gladness! When I learned that my enormous debt of sin had been fully discharged by the Lord Jesus Christ, who did this for all Believers, then was my heart at peace! How much I wish that all of you may join me and Bishop Bickersteth in singing with emphasis—
” Peace perfect peace! In this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within!” The second verse goes on to speak of—
“Peace! Perfect peace! By thronging duties pressed?
To do the will of Jesus, this is rest” This peace is a present possession and may be enjoyed in the ordinary circumstances of life. Everyone who keeps house, every busy housewife, every man who is much occupied with his business, needs this verse—
“Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed.” To be closely pressed by a crowd of duties does not tend to peace of spirit. You do not know how to act through all you have to do and there seems so much to be done all at once. If the duties world come in regular order and you could take them as they come, you might be at peace, even though incessantly occupied. But when they come rushing in, helter-skelter—not only one thing, but 20 other things, all claiming to be done at once—then is the anxious soul apt to be dis-
quieted! We are first wearied and then worried. To be perfectly at peace amid the hurry-burly of invading cares is a very blessed condition of soul—and the only way to reach it is described in the next line of the hymn—
“To do the will of Jesus, this is rest.” To be sure that what you are doing is what Jesus would have you do is peace! Happy soul that is doing what Jesus would have it do! I put up this little question in the Orphanage, for the children to read—“What would Jesus do?” This, if we have spiritual minds, will be one of the best guides for us when we are in difficulty as to what is the next thing for us to do. We would do good, but too many good things are present with us—which is to be first? To know the will of Jesus, and to do it, is to abide in the peace of God! What we cannot do, we shall leave to Him, being assured that our duty does not lie in the region of the absolutely impossible—
“When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.”
God comes in with His Grace where the impossible shuts us out. There are two things we need never worry about—what we can do and what we cannot do. What remains? The next verse is very sweet—