The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon

breath in a roofless hovel. What is the reason for this? God’s providence. He puts one man in one position, and another man in another. Here is a man whose head cannot hold two thoughts together, do what you can with him; here is another who can sit down and write a book, and dive into the deepest of questions; what is the reason for it? God has done it. Do you not see the fact, that God does not treat every man alike? He has made some eagles, and some worms; some he has made lions, and some creeping lizards; he has made some men kings, and some are born beggars. Some are born with gigantic minds, and some verge on being idiots. Why is this? Do you murmur at God for it? No, you say it is a fact, and it is pointless to murmur. What is the use of kicking against facts? It is only kicking against the pricks with naked feet and you hurt yourself and not them. Well, then, election is a positive fact; it is as clear as daylight, that God does, in matters of religion, give to one man more than to another. He gives to me opportunities of hearing the word, which he does not give to the Hottentot. He gives to me, parents who, from infancy, trained me in the fear of the Lord. He does not give that to many of you. He places me afterwards in situations where I am restrained from sin. Other men are cast into places where their sinful passions are developed. He gives to one man a temperament and disposition which keeps him back from some lust, and to another man he gives such impetuosity of spirit, and depravity turns that impetuosity so much aside, that the man runs headlong into sin. Again, he brings one man under the sound of a powerful ministry, while another sits and listens to a preacher whose drowsiness is only exceeded by that of his hearers. And even when they are hearing the gospel, the fact is God works in one heart when he does not in another. Though, I believe to a degree, the Spirit works in the hearts of all who hear the Word, so that they are all without excuse, yet I am sure he works in some so powerfully, that they can no longer resist him, but are constrained by his grace to cast themselves at his feet, and confess him to be Lord of all; while others resist the grace that comes into their hearts; and it does not act with the same irresistible force that it does in the other case, and they perish in their sins, deservedly and justly condemned. Are not these things facts? Does any man deny them? Can any man deny them? What is the use of kicking against facts? I always like to know when there is a discussion, what are the facts. You have heard the story of King Charles the Second and the philosophers — King Charles asked one of them, “What is the reason why, if you had a pail of water, and weighed it, and then put a fish into it, that the weight would be the same?” They gave a great many elaborated reasons for this. At last one of them said, “Is that a fact?” And then they found out that the water did weigh more, just as much more as the fish put into it. So all their learned arguments fell to the ground. So, when we are talking about election, the best thing is to say, “Put aside the doctrine for a moment, let us see what are the facts?” We walk abroad; we open our eyes; we see, there are the facts. What, then, is the use of our discussing any longer? We had better believe it, since it is an undeniable truth. You may alter an opinion, but you cannot alter a fact. You may change a mere doctrine, but you cannot possibly change a thing which actually exists. There it is — God does certainly deal with some men better than he does with others. I will not offer an apology for God; he can explain his own dealings; he needs no defence from me,

      God is his own interpreter,

      And he will make it plain;

      but there stands the fact. Before you begin to argue upon the doctrine, just remember, that whatever you may think about it, you cannot alter it; and however much you may object to it, it is actually true that God did love Jacob, and did not love Esau.

      6. For now look at Jacob’s life and read his history; you are compelled to say that, from the first hour that he left his father’s house, even to the last, God loved him. Why, he has not gone far from his father’s house before he is weary, and he lies down with a stone for his pillow, and the hedges for his curtain, and the sky for his canopy; and he goes to sleep, and God comes and talks to him in his sleep; he sees a ladder, whose top reaches to heaven, and a company of angels ascending and descending upon it; and he goes on his journey to Laban. Laban tries to cheat him, and as often as Laban tries to wrong him, God does not permit it, but multiplies the different cattle that Laban gives to him. Afterwards, you remember, when he fled unawares from Laban, and was pursued, that God appears to Laban in a dream, and charges him not to speak to Jacob either good or bad. And more memorable still, when his sons Levi and Simeon have committed murder in Shechem, and Jacob is afraid that he will be overtaken and destroyed by the inhabitants who were rising against him, God puts a fear upon the people, and says to them, “Do not touch my anointed, and do no harm to my prophet.” And when a famine comes over the land, God has sent Joseph into Egypt, to provide grain in Goshen for his brothers, so that they would live and not die. And see the happy end of Jacob — “I shall see my son Joseph before I die.” Behold the tears streaming down his aged cheeks, as he clasps his own Joseph to his bosom! See how magnificently he goes into the presence of Pharaoh, and blesses him. It is said, “Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” He had God’s love so much in him, that he was free to bless the mightiest monarch of his times. At last he gave up the ghost, and it was said at once, “This was a man whom God loved.” There is the fact that God did love Jacob.

      7. On the other hand, there is the fact that God did not love Esau. He permitted Esau to become the father of princes, but he has not blessed his descendents. Where is the house of Esau now? Edom has perished. She built her houses in the rock, and cut out her cities in the flinty rock; but God has abandoned its inhabitants, and Edom is not to be found. They became the bondslaves of Israel, and the kings of Edom had to furnish a yearly tribute of wool to Solomon and his successors; and now the name of Esau is erased from the book of history. Now, then, I must say, again, this ought to remove at least some of the bitterness of controversy, when we remember that this is the fact, let men say what they wish, that God did love Jacob, and he did not love Esau.

      8. II. But now the second point of my subject is, WHY IS THIS? Why did God love Jacob? Why did he hate Esau? Now, I am not going to undertake too much at once. You say to me, “Why did God love Jacob? and why did he hate Esau?” We will take one question at a time; for the reason why some people get into a muddle in theology is, because they try to give an answer to two questions. Now, I shall not do that; I will tell you one thing at a time. I will tell you why God loved Jacob; and, then, I will tell you why he hated Esau. But I cannot give you the same reason for two contradictory things. That is the place where a great many have failed. They have sat down and seen these facts, that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, that God has an elect people, and that there are others who are not elect. If, then, they try to give the same reason for election and non-election, they make sad work of it. If they will pause and take one thing at a time, and look to God’s Word, they will not go wrong.

      9. The first question is, why did God love Jacob? I am not at all puzzled to answer this, because when I turn to the Word of God, I read this text; — “Not for your sakes, do I do this says the Lord God, let be it known to you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways oh house of Israel.” I am not at a loss to tell you that it could not be for any good thing in Jacob, that God loved him, because I am told that “the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not by works but by him who calls.” I can tell you the reason why God loved Jacob; it is sovereign grace. There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him; there was everything about him, that might have made God hate him, as much as he did Esau, and a great deal more. But it was because God was infinitely gracious, that he loved Jacob, and because he was sovereign in his dispensation of this grace, that he chose Jacob for the object of that love. Now, I am not going to deal with Esau, until I have answered the question on the side of Jacob. I want you just to notice this, that Jacob was loved by God, simply on the footing of free grace. For, come now, let us look at Jacob’s character; I have already said in the exposition, what I think of him. I do think the very smallest things of Jacob’s character. As a natural man, he was always a bargain maker.

      10. I was struck the other day with that vision that Jacob had at Bethel: it seemed to me a most extraordinary development of Jacob’s bargain making spirit. You know he lay down, and God was pleased to open the doors of heaven to him, so that he saw God sitting at the top of the ladder, and the angels ascending