The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon

vengeance can invent? Shall these eyes that now look on God’s people one day behold the frightful sights of spirits destroyed in that all consuming fire? And must it be that the ears that have heard the hallelujahs of this morning, shall one day hear the shrieks, and groans, and howls, of the lost and damned spirits? It must be so if we are not Christ’s. Oh how frightful it will be! I think I see some grave professor at last condemned to hell. There are multitudes of sinners, lying in their irons, and tossing on their beds of flame; lifting themselves upon their elbows for a moment, then seem to forget their tortures as they see the professor come in, and they cry — “Are you become like one of us? Is the preacher himself damned? What! is the deacon of the church below, come to sit with drunkards, and with swearers?” “Aha,” they cry, “aha, aha, are you bound up in the same bundle with us after all?” Surely the mockery of hell must be itself a most fearful torture; professing sinners mocked by those who never professed religion.

      17. But mortal life can never describe the miseries of a disappointed blasted hope, when that hope is lost — it involves the loss of mercy, the loss of Christ, the loss of life — and it involves moreover, the terrible destruction and the awful vengeance of Almighty God. Let us one and all go home today, when yet God’s sky is heavy, and let us bend ourselves at his altar, and cry for mercy. Every man apart — husband apart from wife. Apart, let us seek our rooms of praying again and again, “Lord renew me: Lord forgive me: Lord accept me.” And while, perhaps, the tempest which is now lowring over the sky, and before another still more dire tempest shall fall on us with its fearful terrors, may you find peace. May we not then find ourselves lost, lost for ever, where hope can never come! It shall be my duty to examine myself. I hope I shall be enabled to put myself into the scale; promise me my hearers, that each of you will do the same.

      18. I was told one day this week by someone, that having recently preached for several Sundays upon the comforting doctrines of God’s Word, he was afraid that some of you would begin to console yourselves with the idea that you were God’s elect when perhaps you were not. Well, at least, such a thing shall not happen, if I have done what I hoped to do this morning. God bless you, for Jesus’ sake.

      His Name — The Mighty God

      No. 258-5:265. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, June 19, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       The Mighty God. {Isaiah 9:6}

      1. Other translations of this divine title have been proposed by several very eminent and able scholars. Not that any of them have been prepared to deny that this translation is after all most accurate; but rather that while there are various words in the original, which we render by the common appellation of “GOD,” it might be possible to interpret this to show more precisely its meaning. One writer, for example, thinks the term might be translated “The Irradiator,” — he who gives light to men. Some think it bears the meaning of “The Illustrious,” — the bright and the shining one. Still there are very few, if any, who are prepared to dispute the fact that our translation is the most faithful that could possibly be given — “the mighty God.”

      2. The term here used for God, El, is taken from a Hebrew root, which, as I take it, signifies strength; and perhaps a literal translation even of that title might be, “The Strong One,” the strong God. But there is added to this an adjective in the Hebrew, expressive of mightiness, and the two taken together express the omnipotence of Christ, his real deity and his omnipotence, as standing first and foremost among the attributes which the prophet saw. “The mighty God.” I do not propose this morning to enter into any argument in proof of the divinity of Christ, because my text does not seem to demand it of me. It does not say that Christ shall be “the mighty God,” — that is affirmed in many other places of Sacred Writ; but here it says, “He shall be called Wonderful,” called “Counsellor,” called, “The mighty God”; and I think that therefore I may be excused from entering into any proof of the fact, if I am at least able to establish the truth of what is here foretold, inasmuch as Christ is indeed called to this day, and shall be called to the end of the world, “the mighty God.”

      3. First, this morning, I shall speak for a moment on the folly of those who profess to be his followers, but who do not call him “the mighty God.” In the second place I shall try to show how the true believer practically calls Christ “the mighty God,” in many of the acts which concern his salvation; and then I shall close by noticing how Jesus Christ has proven himself to be indeed “the mighty God” to us, and in the experience of his church.

      4. I. First let me point out THE FOLLY OF THOSE WHO PROFESS TO BE THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, YET DO NOT, AND WILL NOT, CALL HIM GOD. The question has sometimes been proposed to me, how it is that those of us who hold the divinity of Christ display what is called uncharitableness towards those who deny him. We do continually affirm that an error, with regard to the divinity of Christ, is absolutely fatal, and that a man cannot be right in his judgment upon any part of the gospel unless he thinks correctly of him who is personally the very centre of all the purposes of heaven, and the foundation of all the hopes of earth. Nor can we allow any latitudinarianism here. We extend the right hand of fellowship to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; but we cannot exchange our Christian greetings with those who deny him to be “very God of very God.” And the reason is sometimes asked; for our opponents say, “We are ready to give the right hand of fellowship to you, why do you not do so to us?” Our reply shall be given thus briefly: “You have no right to complain about us, seeing that in this matter we stand on the defensive. When you declare yourselves to believe that Christ is not the Son of God, you may not be conscious of it, but you have charged us with one of the blackest sins in the entire catalogue of crime.” The Unitarians must, to be consistent, charge all of us, who worship Christ, with being idolaters. Now idolatry is a sin of the most heinous character; it is not an offence against men it is true, but it is an intolerable offence against the majesty of God. We are ranked by Unitarians, if they are consistent, with the Hottentots. “No,” they say, “we believe that you are sincere in your worship.” So is the Hottentot; he bows down before his fetish, {a} his block of wood or stone, and he is an idolater; and although you charge us with bowing before a man, yet we do hold that you have laid at our door a sin insufferably gross, and we are obliged to repel your accusation with some severity. You have so insulted us by denying the Godhead of Christ, you have charged us with so great a crime, that you cannot expect us to sit coolly down and blandly smile at the accusation. It does not matter what a man worships, if it is not God, he is an idolater. There is no distinction in principle between worship to a god of mud and a god of gold, indeed further, there is no distinction between the worship of an onion and the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. These are all idolatries. And though Christ is confessed by the Socinian to be the best of men, perfection’s own self; yet if he is nothing more, the vast mass of the Christian world is deliberately assailed with the impudent accusation of being idolaters. Yet those who charge us with idolatry, expect us to receive them with cordial kindness. It is not in flesh and blood for us to do so, if we take the low ground of reason; it is not in grace or truth to do so, if we take the high ground of revelation. As men, we are willing to show them respect, we regard them, we pray for them, we have no anger or enmity against them. But when we come to the point of theology, we cannot, since we profess to be followers of Christ, tamely see ourselves charged with an offence so dreadful and so heinous as that of idol worship.

      5. I confess I would almost rather be charged with a religion that extenuated murder, than with one that justified idolatry. Murder, great as the offence is, is only the slaying of man; but idolatry is in its essence the killing of God; it is the attempt to thrust the Eternal Jehovah out of his seat, and to foist into his place the work of his own hand, or the creature of my own conceit. Shall a man charge me with being so besotted as to worship a mere man? shall he tell me I am so low and grovelling in my intellect, that I should stoop down to worship my own fellow creature? and yet does he expect me after that to receive him as a brother professing the same faith? I cannot understand his presumption. The charge against our sanctity of heart is so tremendous, the accusation is so frightful,