The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

voices sang, “Not one, not one.” I believe that at the last, a part of our triumph will be the fact, that there is not one left. We shall look abroad throughout the earth, and see it all a level sea; and not one enemy pursuing us — “not one, not one!” Raise yourself ever so high, oh you deceiver, you cannot live; for not one shall escape. Lift your head ever so proudly, oh despot, you cannot live; for not one shall escape. Oh heir of heaven, not one sin shall cross the Jordan after you; not one shall pass the Red Sea to overtake you; but this shall be the summit of your triumph — “Not one, not one! not one of them is left.”

      13. Just let us note again, and I will not detain you too long, lest I weary you. One part of the song of Moses consisted in praising the ease with which God destroyed his enemies. “You did blow with your wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.” If we had gone to work to destroy the hosts of Pharaoh, what a multitude of engines of death we would have required. If the work had been committed to us, to cut off the hosts, what marvellous preparations, what thunder, what noise, what great activity there would have been. But notice the grandeur of the expression. God did not even lift himself from his throne to do it: he saw Pharaoh coming; he seemed to look upon him with a placid smile; he only blew with his lips, and the sea covered them. You and I will marvel at the last how easy it has been to overthrow the enemies of the Lord. We have been tugging and toiling all our lifetime to be the means of overthrowing systems of error: it will astonish the church when her Master shall come to see how, as the ice dissolves before the fire, all error and sin shall be utterly destroyed in the coming of the Most High. We must have our societies and our machinery, our preachers and our gatherings, and rightly too; but God will not require them at the last. The destruction of his enemies shall be as easy to him as the making of a world. In passive silence unmoved he sat; and he only broke the silence with “Let there be light; and light was.” So shall he at the last, when his enemies are raging furiously, blow with his winds, and they shall be scattered; they shall melt even as wax, and shall be burned like tow; they shall be as the fat of rams; into smoke shall they consume, yes, into smoke shall they consume away.

      14. Furthermore, in this song of Moses you will notice, there is one peculiar beauty. Moses not only rejoiced for what had been done, but for the future consequences of it. He says — “The people of Canaan, whom we are about to attack, will now be seized with sudden fear; by the greatness of your arm they shall be as still as a stone.” Oh! I think I hear them singing that too, sweetly and softly — “as still as a stone.” How would the words come full, like gentle thunder heard in the distance — “as still as a stone!” And when we shall get on the other side the flood, see the triumph over our enemies, and behold our Master reigning, this will form a part of our song — that they must henceforth be “as still as a stone.” There will be a hell, but it will not be a hell of roaring demons, as it now is. They shall be “as still as a stone.” There will be legions of fallen angels, but they shall no longer have courage to attack us or to defy God: they shall be “as still as a stone.” Oh! how grand will that sound, when the hosts of God’s redeemed, looking down on the demons chained, bound, silenced, struck dumb with terror, shall sing exultingly over them! They must be as still as a stone; and there they must lie, and bite their iron bands. The fierce despiser of Christ can no more spit in his face; the proud tyrant can no more lift his hands to oppress the saints; even Satan can no more attempt to destroy. They shall be “as still as a stone.”

      15. And last of all, the song concludes by noticing the eternity of God’s reign; and this will always make a part of the triumphant song. They sang — “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.” Then I can suppose the whole band broke out into their loudest strains of music. “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.” Part of the melody of heaven will be “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.” That song has cheered us here. — “The Lord reigns; blessed be my rock!” And that song shall be our exultation there. “The Lord reigns for ever and ever.” When we shall see the placid sea of providence, when we shall behold the world all fair and lovely, when we shall see our enemies destroyed, and God Almighty triumphant, then we shall shout the song —

      Hallelujah! for the Lord

      God Omnipotent shall reign;

      Hallelujah! let the word

      Echo round the earth and main.

      Oh! may we be there to sing it!

      16. I have one remark to make, and I am finished. You know, my friends, that as there is something in the song of Moses which is typical of the song of the Lamb, there was another song sung by the waters of the Red Sea which is typical of the song of hell. “What mean you, sir, by that dread thought?” Oh! shall I use the word music? Shall I profane the heavenly word so much as to say, it was doleful music which came from the lips of Pharaoh and his host? Boldly and pompously, with roll of drum and blast of trumpet they had entered into the sea. Suddenly their martial music ceased; and ah! oh heavens and oh floods what was it? The sea was coming down upon them, utterly to devour them. Oh! may we never hear that shriek, that awful yell of hideous agony, that seemed to rend the sky, and then was hushed again, when Pharaoh and his mighty men were swallowed up, and went down alive into hell! Ah! stars, if you had heard it, if the black pall of waters had not shut out the sound from you, you might have continued trembling to this hour, and maybe you are trembling now; maybe your twinklings by night are on account of that terrible shriek you heard; for certainly it would be enough to make you tremble on for ever. That dreadful shriek, that hideous moan, that horrible howl, when a whole army sank into hell at once, when the waters swallowed them up!

      17. Take heed, my friends, take heed, lest you should have to join in that terrible miserere; take heed, lest that horrible howl should be yours, instead of the song of the redeemed. And remember, so must it be, unless you be born again, unless you believe in Christ, unless you repent of sin and renounce it wholly, and with trembling hearts put your confidence in the Man of Sorrows, who is soon to be crowned the King of kings and Lord of lords. May God bless you, and give you all to taste of his salvation, that you may stand upon the sea of glass, and not have to feel the terrors of the mingled fire in the lower depths of it! God Almighty bless this vast assembly, for Jesus’ sake!

      {a} The fires that Queen Mary (1553-1558) ordered to be lit at Smithfield put to death such Protestant leaders and men of influence as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, but also hundreds of lesser men who refused to adopt the Catholic faith.

      Mercy, Omnipotence, And Justice

      No. 137-3:241. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, June 21, 1857, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. {Nahum 1:3}

      1. Works of art require some education in the beholder, before they can be thoroughly appreciated. We do not expect that the uninstructed should at once perceive the varied excellencies of a painting from some master hand; we do not imagine that the superlative glories of the harmonies of the Princes of Song will enrapture the ears of clownish listeners. There must be something in the man himself, before he can understand the wonders either of nature or of art. Certainly this is true of character. By reason of failures in our character and faults in our life, we are not capable of understanding all the separate beauties, and the united perfection of the character of Christ, or of God, his Father. Were we ourselves as pure as the angels in heaven, were we what our race once was in the garden of Eden, immaculate and perfect, it is quite certain that we should have a far better and nobler idea of the character of God than we can possibly attain to in our fallen state. But you cannot fail to notice, that men, through the alienation of their natures, are continually misrepresenting God, because they cannot appreciate his perfection. Does God at one time withhold his hand from wrath? Lo, they say that God has ceased to judge the world, and looks upon it with listless phlegmatic indifference. Does he at another time punish the world for sin? They say he is severe and cruel. Men will misunderstand him, because they are imperfect themselves, and are not capable of admiring the character of God.

      2. Now,