a Christian to live is to live in daily dependence upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, just as he did when he was a babe in grace and a stone newly drawn from the quarry of nature. I know what it is to build up a niee structure of my own experience on the foundation of Christ, and to climb upon it, instead of standing on the foundation. If you were ever on the top of Snowdon, or some other high mountain, you will have noticed that to make the standing a little higher they put up some wooden scaffold or other, some ten or twelve feet of platform, to increase the elevation, and then everybody wants to get up on that platform. Well, now, I have built my little platform on Christ. My own experience has made a very handsome erection, I can tell you. I have felt, "Well, I know this and that and the other by experience," and I have been quite exalted. Sometimes, too, I have built a platform of good works-"I have done something for Christ after all." The proud flesh says, "Oh yes, you really have performed something you might talk about if you liked." Self-confidence has piled my platform up and it has been a very respectable looking concern, and I have asked a few friends up. But, do you know what has occurred? Why, I have felt my platform shake. It began to tremble. Stress of weather had rotted the beams, and the supports have begun to give way, and I have seen all my building tumble down, and I have gone down with it; and as I have gone down with it I have thought," It is all over with me now. I am going crash down, I do not know how far, but perhaps I shall fall to the bottom of the mountain" Instead of that I alighted on the top of the mountain. I did not fall very far, but came right down where it had been most sensible of me if I had always kept, namely, on terra firma, down on the solid earth. I have noticed that a great many of my brethren have been lately building some very pretty little wooden structures on the top of Jesus Christ. I think they call them "the higher life," if I rightly recollect the name. I do not know of any life that is higher than that of simple faith in Jesus Christ. As far as I am concerned, the highest life for me out of heaven is the life of a poor publican saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." My very good friends are not content with this position, though he who keeps it goes to his house justified more than boasters. Some friends built very high a little while ago, I thought they would soon reach the moon, but certain of them went down in a very ugly way, I have heard, and I am afraid some more will go down if they do not mind what they are at. Give up building these artificial elevations: give up resting on them; and just stand on the level of Christ's finished work, the blood of Christ for sinners shed; the righteousness of Christ to sinners imputed. Be yours the humble plea-- "I the chief of sinners am,

He that is down there will never fall, and he who keeps there is really as high up as the man who thinks he is all aloft; for all above living by faith in Christ is mere dream and moonshine. There is nothing higher, after all, than just being nobody, and Christ being everybody, and singing with poor Jack, the huckster,

"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all,

But Jesus Christ is my all in all.”

If you grow till you are less than nothing, you are full grown, but few have reached that stage; and if you grow till Christ is everything to you, you are in your prime; but, alas, how far short of this do most men fall! The Lord bring you to that highest of all growths-to be daily coming to Christ; always empty in yourself, but full in him; always weak in yourself, but strong in him; always nothing in self, but Christ your perpetual all in all! The Lord keep you there, brothers and sisters, and he will have praise and glory of you, both now and for ever. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-I Peter ii. 1—16.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN Book"-795, 606; and "O Christ, what burdens bowed thy head "-44 Sankey.

THE FOLLOWING

SERMONS BY C. H. SPURGEON

Are published in small book form, in neat wrapper, One Penny each.

A CHEERY WORD IN TROUBLOUS TIMES.

A Sermon

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me."-Acts xxvii. 25.

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THE presence of a brave man in the hour of danger is a very great comfort to his companions. It is a grand thing to observe Paul so bold, so calm, in the midst of all the hurly-burly of the storm, and talking so cheerfully, and so encouragingly, to the crew and to the soldiery and to the prisoners. You must have seen in many events in history that it is the one man, after all, that wins the battle: all the rest play their parts well when the one heroic spirit lifts the standard. Every now and then we hear some simpleton or other talking against a one-man ministry," when it has been a one-man ministry from the commencement of the world to the present day; and whenever you try to have any other form of ministry, except that of each individual saint discharging his own ministry, and doing it thoroughly and heartily and independently and bravely in the sight of God, you very soon run upon quicksands. Recollect, Christian man, that wherever you are placed you are to be the one man, and you are to have courage and independence of spirit and strength of mind received from God, that with it you may comfort those around you who are of the weaker sort. So act that your confidence in God shall strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees, and your calm quiet look shall say to them that are of a faint heart, "Be strong; fear not."

If you are to do this, and I trust you will do it, in the sick chamber, in the midst of the troubles of life, in the church, and everywhere else, you must be strong yourself. Take it as a good rule that nothing can come out of you that is not in you. You cannot render real encouragement to others unless you have courage within yourself. Now, the reason why Paul was able to embolden his companions was that he had encouraged himself in his God; he was calm, or else he could not have calmed those around him. Imagine him excited and all in a tremble, and yet saying, "Sirs, be of good cheer." Why they would have thought No. 1,335.

that he mocked them, and they would have replied, "Be of good cheer yourself, sir, before you encourage us." So my dear brothers and sisters, you must trust God and be calm and strong, or else you will not be of such service in the world and in the church as you ought to be. Get full, and then you will run over, but you can never fill others till you become full yourselves. Be yourselves "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might," and then you will be as a standard lifted up to which the timid will rally.

At this time we are going to speak very little about Paul, but a great deal to ourselves. May God speak to us! May the Holy Spirit cheer our hearts, and lead us into the way of peace and power. If Paul was strong it was because he believed God: let us speak about that faith. Paul, being strong, spake words of good cheer to others: let us, in the second place, see whether we cannot speak words of encouragement to our comrades in distress. We will finish up with such words as God may give us.

I. First, then, PAUL WAS STRONG BECAUSE HE BELIEVED. Faith makes men strong-not in the head, but in the heart. Doubting people are generally headstrong-the Thomas-sort of people who obstinately declare that they will not believe unless they can have proofs of their own choosing. If you read certain newspapers, journals, quarterly reviews, and so on, you will see that the doubting people who are always extolling scepticism and making out that there is more faith in their doubt than in half the creeds, and so on, are particularly strong in the upper region, namely, in the head, only it is that sort of head-strength which implies real weakness, for obstinacy seldom goes with wisdom. They are always sneering at believers as a feeble folk, which is a clear sign that they are not very strong themselves; for evermore is this a rule without exception, that when a man despises his opponent he is himself the party who ought to be despised. When certain writers rave about "evangelical platitudes," as they commonly do, they only see in others a fault with which they are largely chargeable themselves. Anybody who glances at the sceptical literature of the present day will bear me out that the platitudes have gone over to the doubting side of the house. No people can write such fluent nonsense, and talk such absurdity, as the school of modern doubt and "culture" they think themselves the wisest of the wise, but, professing to be wise, they have become fools, and I know what I say. It is true that the evangelical party had become flat and stale, but the other party have beaten us at that. They are more dull, more stale, and more unprofitable by far. When a man leaves faith he leaves strength; when he takes up with "liberal" views in religion, and does not believe anything in particular, he has lost the bone and sinew of his soul. It is true all round, in all things, that he who firmly believes has an element of power which the doubter knows nothing of. Even if a man be somewhat mistaken in what he believes, there is a power in his faith though it may in part be power for mischief: there is, however, in a believer a world of power for good if the right thing be believed. Paul was a believer in God, and so became strong in heart, and was on board the foundering vessel the centre of hope, the mainstay of courage.

But notice that Paul's faith was faith in God. "I believe God," said

he. Nobody else in the ship could see any hope in God. With the exception of one or two like-minded with Paul they thought that God had forsaken them, if indeed they thought of God at all. But there had that night stood by Paul's side an angel fresh from heaven, bright with the divine presence, and, strengthened by his message, Paul said, "I believe God." That was something more than saying "I believe in in God": this many do and derive but slender comfort from the belief. But "I believe God, believe him, believe his truthfulness, believe the word that he has spoken, believe his mercy and his power. I believe God." This made Paul calm, peaceful, strong. Would to God that all professing Christians did really believe God.

Believing God, he believed the message that God had sent him, drank in every word and was revived by it. God had said "Fear not Paul, I have given thee all them that sail with thee." He believed it. He felt certain that God, having promised it, was able to perform it; and amidst the howling of the winds Paul clung to that promise. He was sure that no hair of any man's head would be harmed. The Lord had said the preserving word and it was enough for his servant. Has he said it, and shall he not do it? Has he spoken it, and shall it not come to pass? He believed God that it should be even as it was told him.

And he did that-mark you, dear friends-when there was nothing else to believe in. "I believe God," said he. He might have said to the centurion, if he had pleased, "I do not believe in the sailors: they are evidently nonplussed, and do not know what to do. We are driven before the wind, and their sails and tackle are useless. I do not believe in the men themselves, for they are plotting to get into the boat, and leave the ship and all in it to go to the bottom. We must have them on board, but still I have no trust in them, their help is of small account compared with the divine aid." He did not say "I believe in you, the centurion, that you can maintain military discipline, and so we shall have a better opportunity of escaping." No, the ship was breaking up. They had put ropes all round her, undergirding her; but he could clearly perceive that all this would not avail. The fierce Euroclydon was sweeping the vessel hither and thither, and driving her towards the shore: but he calmly said, "I believe God." Ah, that is a grand thingto believe God when the winds are out,—to believe God when the waves howl like so many wild beasts, and follow one upon another like a pack of wolves all seeking to devour you. "I believe God." This is the genuine breed of faith-this which can brave a tempest. The common run of men's faith is fair-weather faith, faith which loves to see its beautiful image mirrored in the glassy wave, but is far away when the storm clouds are marshalling the battle. The faith of God's elect is the faith that can see in the dark, the faith that is calm in the tumult, the faith that can sing in the midst of sorrow, the faith that is brightest when everything around her is black as midnight. "I believe God," said he, when he had nothing else to believe in. My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him." Say thou, O my soul, "Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet will we not fear, for God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

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