The Blowing of the Gospel Trumpet (1) 2
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But something more is needed than the mere outward sound of the gospel. Many of God's poor children, who in their own feelings are ready to perish, may hear a free grace gospel preached in all its purity, and yet only be condemned by it, because not able to receive it, nor believe it, nor realize it. It therefore seems only to add to their misery, to feel that the gospel is enjoyed by others, while they cannot get a grain. But when the great trumpet is blown by the mouth of the Spirit, it makes sweet melody, not merely in the ear, but in the heart. The soul is then open to receive it, and its sweet notes find a blessed echo there when the Spirit proclaims pardoning mercy.
But what is the gospel? We talk much about gospel preaching, of a free grace gospel, and so forth, and we will not hear any minister who does not preach a free grace gospel. But what is all that? We may have the gospel in our heads, and on our lips, and yet not have a grain of the gospel in our hearts; and we never can have, and never ought to have the gospel in our hearts until we are brought into those circumstances to which the gospel is adapted.
But while a child of God is passing through this part of experience, how distressing it is to him! how his mind is exercised, his conscience burdened, and his soul racked with a thousand doubts, fears, and apprehensions! And yet how good it is for him to be thus exercised! It gives him an ear to hear the gospel, puts him into a situation to which the gospel is adapted, and makes him feelingly and experimentally one of those characters whom the Lord Jesus came to save; for "this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." 1Ti 1:15
Christ came "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He came "to seek and to save that which was lost." These tidings suit him well; for he feels himself to be no common sinner, but the chief of sinners; no ordinary transgressor, but a rebel in chief; a desperate, out of the way wretch, to the depths of whose wicked heart there seems neither end nor bottom. A gospel, therefore, clogged and fettered by conditions, mangled and shorn of its fullness and freeness, diluted and lowered by the water of creature qualifications, is no gospel to him. It does not reach his heart, come into his soul, touch his conscience, melt his spirit, or raise up faith, or hope, or love.
Nothing is so marvelous and mysterious as the work of grace. It is marvelous in pulling down, and marvelous in raising up; and as mysterious as marvelous. Here is one "ready to perish," and an "outcast." He would be neither if he could help it; and neither has he made himself. But such he is, and he must have help or die. Now to such a one, all but a free grace gospel is a mockery. It is taunting a drowning man to stand on the bank and bid him swim for his life. Leap in and save him. When brought to shore, he will bless his deliverer. A poor guilty outcast, finds nothing so blessed as to believe the gospel, and yet nothing so hard as to receive it; for he can derive no comfort from it, except as it is applied by free, sovereign, super-abounding grace.
The words are easily learned--"free, sovereign, and super-abounding;" but none can enter into their divine import unless they are applied by the Spirit to the heart. We hail poor souls ready to perish, outcasts in their feelings; for these are the only people who know what a free grace ministry is; there is always some duty to be done by everybody else; some sneaking, lurking self-righteousness not rooted out. With others there is always some SELF at the bottom, until the trials and distressing sensations which the "outcast," and "ready to perish" feel, become brooms to rout out that miserable fellow– self-righteousness. The holes and corners have to be swept. There must be no duty faith, duty hope, duty obedience. But let a man be well exercised in his soul, sin, Satan, temptation, an evil heart, and a corrupt nature, with whole troops of lusts and corruptions speedily will be up in arms against him; and he will feel himself to be a poor miserable wretch without either hope or help.
But you will say– Is there not an easier way of learning the gospel than this? No! Must we then be "ready to perish" before the gospel saves us, and "outcasts" before the gospel takes us in? Yes, surely; for we are so already. The gospel does not make us so, but finds us so. This was the confession that the Lord himself put into the mouth of the Israelite when he stood before the altar. "A Syrian ready to perish was my father." De 26:5 To see and feel ourselves "ready to perish" is but to see and feel our real condition. It is like a person ill of consumption learning for the first time the nature of his disease. To tell him so does not make him so. It is only making known to him his terrible plight. Now would not such a sinking patient hail and embrace a miraculous cure? And would he quarrel with the remedy because it perfectly healed him without his first making himself a little better? So with the gospel. It reveals a certain, an infallible remedy; but until we are ready to perish, we slight and despise it. "Few, if any come to Jesus, until reduced to self-despair."
III. But when the great trumpet is blown, what is the effect produced by its loud and melodious notes? "They shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." They could not come before. When "ready to perish" they could only sigh, and cry, and groan; when "outcasts," there was no access to God, no power to believe, to hope, or to love; but when the blessed notes of the gospel trumpet sound in the soul, all these hindrances are removed, and there is a "coming" to God. Now by this we may know whether we have received the gospel into our hearts.
What does the preached gospel do for most hearers? Nothing at all. It does not move, melt, soften, turn them, or have the least divine effect upon them. Many hear the gospel preached for years, but remain the same, no, become worse, become, as the term is, gospel-hardened. Where the hammer does not break or soften, it hardens, as in the case of the blacksmith's anvil. The weightier the blows the firmer the steel. It is a sad thing to sit under the gospel without having a case for the gospel. The Pharisees who watched Christ when he healed the man with the withered hand, were hardened by a miracle of mercy before their eyes; they had no case and needed no miracle. But where there is a case for mercy, the "ready to perish," the "outcast," when he hears the gospel trumpet, and it makes sweet melody in his soul, comes. This coming shows that the trumpet is heard.
When the soldier hears the sound of the bugle he hurries to do what the bugle bids. If it call him to quarters, he comes without delay. So when the child of God hears the trumpet call, he comes; and his coming is a sign that he hears and knows what the tones mean.
But how does he come? He comes as the gospel bids him come, unto Jesus--"Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden." "To whom coming as unto a living stone." This coming is "the obedience of faith." "When they hear of me they shall obey me." They come humbled, broken, prostrate, and yet with a sweet sense of acceptance in the Beloved, and are thus brought near unto God. Now if any poor soul here has ever felt the gospel in this way, in its freeness, fullness, and blessedness, he has heard the sound of the great trumpet.
But a Galatian gospel, a mixed gospel, a free-will gospel, a duty gospel, will never thus draw sinners unto God. Such a gospel cannot remove guilt from the conscience, and therefore gives no liberty of soul, and no access into God's presence. A bound and imprisoned gospel will always breathe its own spirit, which is bondage and death. It proclaims no liberty, and therefore gives none. If ever it speaks of mercy it is frightened at its own words, and recalls or qualifies them as soon as uttered. It is a gospel of uncertainties, and therefore can give no sweet and blessed certainty of the pardon of our sins, or acceptance of our persons; resting half its weight on the creature, it can afford no assurance of our standing in the Lord Jesus Christ, or of being bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord the Lamb.
Now there may be some here, and they children of God, who from lack of light or the workings of self-righteousness cannot altogether receive a free grace gospel. They are not enemies to truth, but from some jealousy lest grace should be abused, think we should not go so far in our statements, and that it is prudent and wise to put the break on lest the gospel should get off the rail. But let these good people examine well their experience, and they will find it defective in two most important particulars:
1. They are not ready to perish, nor outcasts.
2. They have not received the spirit of adoption.
And so long as they cleave to this Galatian gospel they never will experience true liberty nor rejoice in hope of the glory of God. These are kept from hearing the melodious sounds of the gospel trumpet through self-righteousness.
But there are those of a very different class and stamp, who are kept back by self-despair. Their language is--"I have been so vile and base; I have been such a backslider; I have wandered in my affections so far from God; my heart, also, is so evil, my mind so carnal, my corruptions so powerful, what shall I do? What shall I do?" But what can you do?Nothing is the sum total of all you can do. Cast up all your doings and you will find you must write, nil--nothing, at the bottom. Where then are you brought? To this point, "ready to perish," an "outcast." Is not this your very character, your precise condition? Beg then of God to bring his gospel near, to sound the great trumpet in your heart. Tell him that you are ready to perish and that he alone can save.
Called then by the sounding of the great trumpet the perishing and the outcasts "come." And what do they do when they come? Do they trifle with sin, mock God, and abuse his grace? We read not so. They "worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." They worship him in Spirit and in truth, in the beauty of holiness. With purified hearts, purged consciences, and spiritual affections, they fall down before him, and their souls are impressed with the greatness of his love. They had no such heavenly feelings before; they could not therefore worship the three-one God in the holy mount, nor at Jerusalem. The great trumpet had not blown; the jubilee had not come; the chains had not been knocked off, the shackles not loosed, and the prison gates not thrown open. They could not therefore worship God freely and fully with liberty of access and freedom of spirit.
But where do they worship him? On the holy mount. The holy mount we may understand to signify spiritually Mount Zion, the place where Jesus sits in glory. This is the ancient declaration of the Father– "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Here Jesus ever sits with love in his heart, grace in his lips, and the gospel in his hands. He sits on a holy hill, sways a holy scepter, and rules in the hearts of a holy people.
Men talk much of holiness; and indeed they may well talk of it, for it is a most solemn declaration, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." But what sort of holiness are most seeking after? A holiness of the flesh, a sanctity of the creature. They must do this and abstain from that; and if they do this and abstain from that, then they are holy. So many prayers must be said, so many chapters read, so many duties done. This is Popish holiness, the sanctified austerity of a St. Dominic, not that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. That is of a very different nature--different every way, in source, way, means, and end.
The only true holiness is that which is produced by the Spirit of God in the soul. Other source or fountain there is none. And how does he produce it? By the law or the gospel? By the gospel certainly. When the great trumpet of jubilee sounds in the soul, when it listens to the notes, and comes obedient to its call, it is to worship the Lord in his holy mount at Jerusalem. True holiness is then produced in the soul; for then there are given spiritual desires, spiritual affections, spiritual views, spiritual feelings, and spiritual hearts. This is the holiness which is wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God, and without which no man shall see the Lord.
But what a strange way it is to be made holy! Before a poor sinner "ready to perish" will be holy, sin usually makes terrible work with him. Satan thrusts hard at him; temptation attacks him; lusts and corruptions knock him nearly to pieces; and he is "ready to perish" miserably under the accumulated wrath of God. What holiness has now this poor wretch? Judging by his own feelings, no more than Satan has; aye, and unable to produce it, though he shed floods of tears, or to find any one on earth to produce it for him. Can this be a man for God? A man to whom the gospel is proclaimed? A man for whom Christ died? Can this be a child of God and an heir of heaven? What? this poor wretch "ready to perish," this poor "outcast?" Yes, he is the very person, an heir of heaven, a co-heir with Christ, and on his way to glory.
But, you ask, is there to be no practical holiness, no obedience of the hands, no consistency in the life? Yes, surely. But do not confound cause and effect, root and fruit, source and stream. Is this holiness produced by obedience, by doings, by duties? I read not so. I find it thus--"In that day shall the great trumpet be blown"– the trumpet of the gospel, which proclaims mercy to the miserable, and pardon to the guilty, which declares that Christ has finished the work which the Father gave him to do, and washed away sin in his own precious blood. The outcast hears, believes, feels, realizes. As these heavenly notes produce sweet melody in his soul, he comes to Mount Zion and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks better things than the blood of Abel. There the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ, and reveals them to his soul. He thus sanctifies him, and produces love to Jesus, and obedience to the truth. Old things pass away, and all things become new. This is spiritual holiness, a thing as different from fleshly holiness, as heaven from hell.
Have you seen the matter in this light, and felt a measure of this divine power and work? If not, I must say that you have never yet heard the gospel trumpet. Self-righteousness is still working in you. You love a Galatian gospel, because such a gospel suits your self-righteous heart. But do not condemn others, and call them Antinomians, because they believe and love a free grace gospel. I believe in my heart and conscience, that every child of God who is to be saved will experience these things, each in his measure. The gospel has not two different sounds. The silver trumpets were to be made all of one piece; and so is the gospel, all of one piece. This trumpet gives a certain sound.
Now, this may explain why the gospel in our day is so much despised. It is too pure, too free, too sovereign, too super-abounding. Most people like the gospel wine to be mingled with a considerable mixture of water, because the pure wine of gospel grace is too strong for them. But who are those that love gospel wine? They are those that Lemuel's mother bade him pay special attention to. "Give strong drink," said she, "to him who is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." She was a wise woman, and she gave wise advice. What was true then is true now. The heavy in heart still love the gospel wine; and the perishing and the outcasts still come at the sound of the great trumpet, and worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
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