The Sentence Of Death In Us
by William Gadsby
Preached on Sunday Evening, May 9th, 1841, in Grover Street Chapel
by William Gadsby
"But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but
in God which raiseth the dead" 2 Cor.1:9
In the fourth verse the apostle says, "Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may
be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted." Now I have been there in some solemn measure in my conscience and
sometimes have been there not very pleasingly and sometimes more pleasingly. My flesh
and blood, at times, have murmured to think I must go deeply into certain conflicts,
certain tribulations, certain distresses, certain miseries, both within and without, to be an
instrument in God's hand of leading some hobbling soul in the same hobbling hole; and I
have been ready to say to the Lord, "Lord, I think I have enough to do with my own
troubles; without being plaqued with other people's;" and thus insult the Lord instead of
taking it kindly in him that he should make me the instrument of comforting his family.
But at times when the Lord has been pleased to appear in a sweet and blessed way, I
really have been enabled to give God leave to put me where he will, and do what he will
with me, so that it may but be the means of leading his poor, tried people in their
temptations, and thus comforting "them which are in any trouble, by the comfort -
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."
"For us the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by
Christ." Now did you ever enter into the spirit of that text, that it is -"through much
tribulation we most enter the kingdom?" It does not appear to me that it really means only
people going to heaven through tribulation; but I believe in my conscience we never get
spiritually, feelingly, blessedly, and God-glorifyingly into any branch of God's blessed
kingdom, but through tribulation. The mysteries of the Gospel of God are suited to the
various conflicts and trials of his people; and when God is about to reveal any special
blessing, any special manifested mercy to his children, there is always some conflict or
other connected with it, I have proved it in my own experience, that it has either been to
prepare the mind for some trouble, support it in some trouble, deliver it out of some
trouble, or in some way or other there has been trouble connected with it; and I really
would not give a "Thank you" for any man's religion, if it is not connected with trouble.
And yet my fleshly heart will sometimes tell God that I want no more trouble. But then he
will not believe me, nor act upon it, God, in the riches of his grace, see to it that we shall
have conflicts, internal and external; and the more we slip, the deeper those conflicts will
be, and then God sends consolations,-consolations greater than the miseries; and we are
brought to feel the blessedness, of the salvation of Lord, in the rich openings of it, as
suited to our condition; and he is glorified therein. I believe an untried minister may
preach his people, up to a condition of presumptuous confidence; but their consciences,
will be as dry as these candlesticks., If there be no conflict, if there be no trial, there will
be no dew there. There must be trials and perplexities; and it them that mercy rejoices
over judgment, and the soul is brought to enter spiritually into God's glory, and to know
that the comforts and consolations of the gospel are suited to the condition of the church
in their various trials; and God is glorified thereby.
"And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation." What! Must the
apostles be afflicted for the consolation and salvation of the church? I felt a little of this in
my last affliction; and I thought, "Lord, I am suffering; but why should I murmur and
grumble? Perhaps thou hast some wise end in this." - And I believe he had; and I was
brought to see that it was the design and will and purpose of God to bring me into such
places, both in body and mind, as to make a way for God to open up mysteries of his love
and grace, to me that I might carry a little of the tidings of the goodness and love of God
to poor, hobbling sinners. When I am in a right mind, there are none in the world I feel so
much in agreement with as poor, hobbling sinners. As for those who can help
themselves, I have nothing to do with them, and do not want to have; but when I find
those who can do nothing, who are altogether dependent upon the Lord, I feel a blessed
union of soul with them.
"Which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer." I know
how you go on (at least how my people go on, and I believe you are all alike), sometimes
you are ready to think the minister gets rather dry and then you secretly pray, perhaps,
that God will bring him into trouble. You never dream that perhaps you are dry, and that
God must bring you into trouble, No, no; none of that, it, is the poor minister who is to
have all the trouble and you must have all the profit. But God overrules you; and he
brings the minister into trouble and brings you into trouble; and his trouble and your
trouble and his consolation and your consolation bring you into a blessed oneness; and
so you are led to glorify God's method of opening his love and mercy and can
consolation to your souls.
"And our hope of you is steadfast; knowing that as ye are partakers of the suffering, so
shall ye also be of the consolation." Why, it is so, brethren. We feel a sweetness
sometimes in the matter before God, that the poor, tried, troubled, and helpless creatures
will by and by come away with the sweet, unctuous enjoyment of the consolations of the
gospel of God, and that we and they shall meet together to crown the brow of God in the
world to come, and to show forth his praises for ever find for ever. And therefore we have
this "hope" and a "steadfast" one too.
"For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia,
that we were pressed out of measure, above strength insomuch that we despaired even of
life." Now even in a bodily sense they were - pressed out of measure, above, strength;
aye, and in a mental sense too, in a soul sense. There are times and seasons when the
child of God, when the minister of Christ, is so pressed out of measure" in the conflict of
his mind that he has no more manifest strength to support himself then he has to hold up
the world; and he is obliged to sink; and he wants [lacks] strength to sink. It really
appears sometimes to me that he can neither walk nor stand still, nor sit still; he seems
as if hung upon nothing. And how it, is that he does not sink into black despair, he
sometimes stands amazed before God. And thus he is in a variety of ways "pressed out of
measure."
But eventually the matter appears, agreeably to God's Word, to the consolation of his
people. And the apostle tells us in the next verse how it is "We had the sentence Of death
in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead."
Now let us just endeavour,
I. To look at this "sentence of death in ourselves."
II. The design God has in view in it; which is, to cure us of selftrust- "That we should not
trust in ourselves,-
III. Well then, is he to leave us in black despair? No; but eventually to bring us to trust in
"God which raiseth the dead."
I. I would just notice that sometimes when God begins a work of grace in the heart of a
poor sinner, and especially if that sinner is young, he brings the sentence of death upon
all the poor creature's earthly pursuits and earthly joys, and earthly prospects. There may
a young man, or a young -woman, just springing up into life so as to begin to look about
them for greater prospects; and the principal concern for a while is to see how they shall
manage to make their fortune in the world, how they shall manage to go on with what the
world calls great respectability; and just as they go laying their plans, God sends the
sentence of death into their souls and slaughters all their prospects and plans. They had
imagined that they had a little foresight and a little wisdom, and perhaps looked upon
some others with a degree of astonishment that they should be such fool not manage
things better; they themselves have had their plans with a good understanding, and no
doubt but they shall be prosperous. God mows them all down. God slaughters the wretch,
makes him into a fool a mere a fool, and he feels before God that he has not wisdom to
direct his steps for a single moment. And now he is confounded and wonders where this
will end. And it is thus, while things are just springing up into pleasing appearances,
whatever state he may be in that when God quickens his dead soul he sends the sentence
of death into his conscience upon all his creature enjoyments. If the man is living in
carnal pleasure and prospering, as he thinks, in the pursuit of it, the sentence of death,
comes into it,--mars it all, spoils all. Terror, misery, despair hunt him out of all his creature
enjoyments and all his fleshly pursuits. Sometimes he thinks he will struggle against this
he will drown it in some vain amusement of the world. Perhaps he takes himself to the
playhouse, to some merry company, to some amusement, with a view to drown this
complexity and confusion of mind that he feels. And God goes there too. "Why", say you,
"you do not think that God goes to the playhouse?" Aye, many a time, and to dancing
houses too, when he has a poor sinner there that he is determined to bring under the
sentence of death. He goes to mar the creatures comfort. While the man goes to drown
his guilty fears, God goes to send a fresh spring, to make them rise higher. And the poor
creature for ever, and that there is nothing but misery for him. In whatever station of life
he is, the sentence of death is passed upon it all.
And if he has been a person brought up in what they call religion; if he has had religious
instruction and his judgment is pretty well stored with religious knowledge, so that he
can talk about election, predestination, redemption, final perseverance, and all the
leading truths of the gospel, and is ready to think that, owing to the judgment that he has,
though there must be some little change, it need not be very conspicuous, because he
knows so much already and has got so far on in knowledge;-if ever God begins a work of
grace in that poor sinner's heart, he will make him into a mere fool. All big knowledge will
give way; the sentence of death will come upon him; and he will find, instead of his
knowledge being of any real service when God sends his quickening Spirit and gives him
divine life, it only seems to puzzle him, to confuse him. And perhaps there is some poor
soul here this night who wishes he had never known a word about truth till God had been
pleased to quicken him; for he is ready to conclude that all he has is what he knew
before, and that he has no real vitality, he wishes he had never had a particle of
knowledge about it. And thus comes the sentence of death upon all his knowledge and all
his understanding of religious things; as it is said, "That we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God which raiseth the dead."
But by and by, whatever our state may be when the Lord takes us in hand and quickens
us by his Spirit, and brings a sentence of death upon all our worldly prospects and
enjoyments, and he gives us a little feeling after mercy, a little breathing after pardon and
manifested salvation; and then most likely a legal feeling begins to induce us to rest in
this feeling after mercy and this breathing after salvation, to take satisfaction there, so as
not to be looking for any more. Now if you are endeavouring to walk there, as sure as
there is a living God, the sentence of death will come upon that This is a trusting in your
breathings and pantings rather than any real thirsting for that which cannot die,-the life of
God; and, therefore, the sentence of death shall come, upon it; and you will be brought
perhaps by and by to such a state that you cannot breathe after mercy, you cannot pant
for mercy, you cannot feel a thirsting for God; and you wonder what is the matter now. All
seems to go wrong now. You did have a little hope some short time ago, when you could
have a little breathing and feeling and panting after God; but that is gone, that is sunk;
and you feel as if you had no feeling. If you have any feeling at all, it is to feel that you
have no feeling, that you are a kind of dead weight, and that you sink under it, and cannot
revive your soul. And thus you have the sentence of death in yourself, that you should
not trust in yourself, but in God that raiseth the dead.
Now, however, the Lord, in the riches of his grace and mercy, is pleased to come with his
reviving power, and put it into your heart to be vehement with God in prayer: for whatever
you may think, there is such a thing as being mighty in prayer. It is not the idea of doing
your duty, a duty religion being "pious." Merely doing your duty is a mere fleshly religion
altogether. There is a solemn vitality in the mysteries of the cross of Christ; and the poor
soul is brought to be vehement and agonizing with God, sometimes in a state of
desperation, and is ready to cry out as in agony, "0 Lord, undertake for me; for I am
ruined. 0 Lord, if it be possible, save me; for I am undone." And he feels what he says,
and says what he feels; he is brought from real necessity to be violent in praying about
his soul to God, and knows something of the kingdom of heaven suffering violence;
though he cannot at present feelingly say that "the violent take it by force."
Now almost beyond doubt the enemy will be ready to say, "Ah! Now, as you have been so
vehement, so powerful in your prayers, you may expect a blessing. You have now, as it
where, tired the Lord; he is sure to come now." Do you not see how artful, how detestably
artful the enemy is, to blunt the edge of prayer and to bring you to some creature trust,
instead of looking to the Lord for all you have and all you are that is above nature? As
sure as ever you get there, this vehemence will go. You will find you cannot pray mightily
or vehemently. And then you become so wretched that at length you are obliged to say,
"Lord, what am I? I can neither pray nor let it alone, neither believe nor disbelieve, neither
hope nor do anything that is worthy of a sinner who needs help. All I can really say of
myself is that I am a mass, a dead mass, of stinking pollution, That is all I am and all I
have in self and of self." Well, the sentence of death has come upon all your self-trust,--
your religions self as well as your profane self; and this is making way for God's blessed
salvation, in a way according to the mysteries of his everlasting love.
But anon the Lord is pleased, perhaps, to reveal pardon, I recollect the time when God
was pleased to reveal pardon in my poor soul at first. 0 -what sweetness and solemnity
and blessedness there was in my poor heart! I sang night and day the wonders of his
love; and I never dreamed but I should go singing all the way to heaven. I never expected
to hang my harp upon the 'willows, or even to find it out of tune. But, alas! alas! The harp
was afterwards out of tune; and it wanted God to string it; I could not put it in tune. It is
when the Lord the Spirit comes that he teaches the soul how to sing the wonders of his
love. I could see afterwards how my poor soul had been led on. I had had a zeal for God,
but it was grounded in self; and I had felt God's free love come to my soul as a matter of
free favor, but there was self at bottom thinking - "I will keep this, and cultivate it, and
bring it more and more to maturity, till I grow up into such spiritual enjoyment that there
will not be one in the neighborhood who shall excel me." And I really was sincere; but
then this was the sincerity of self; for if it had not been self-sincerity, it would not have
put in this I -the' great I -what I will be and what I will do. Whenever it comes to this, poor
child of God, whenever you begin to swell with your great I, what I will do and what I will
not do, depend upon it, death is at the door; there will be something that will bring the
sentence of death upon all your comfortable feelings and enjoyments.
I could tell you how it brought me to lose my sweet enjoyment, or rather to have it
removed. I have thought very blessedly sometimes of that sentence of the Lord by the
apostle John: "I have somewhat against thee, because thou has left thy first love." He
does not say lost it, but left it. No, thanks be to God, it is not lost; it is secured in our
blessed Christ; but we go from it in our feelings. The fact is, I was amazingly zealous. I
was a youth between 17 and 18 years of age, and very moderate in my living; and I looked
upon anyone that conducted himself with any degree of immoderation (or what they
called moderation) as proving that they had not vital godliness. Two old men I cut off
entirely; one for going sleep in prayer, and the other because he told me that he should
not wonder if I became intoxicated that week; it was in the fair-time. "For," said he, "you
seem so lifted up with your power to keep from it; and the only thing in your favor is that
you do not like it; for I did not like liquors then. I looked at the poor old man as an old
hypocrite. "What ! I get intoxicated when God has been so gracious as to stop me in my
mad career, and give me pardon, and a sweet conscious enjoyment of it!" I could not
believe it; and I could not believe he had the life of God in his heart, because he could
think it possible. And so I went singing on. But before the week was out, there poor I,
intoxicated! Ah! How dreadful I became in my feelings! I must tell you that I did not take
any thing you would think was drinking to excess; for I had only had one three-half penny
worth of staff. But there, all my comfort was gone and enjoyment gone. Then I thought,
one night, I would put out my light and go upon my knees by my bedside, and never
cease praying all that night until God pardoned me. You see there was a little I still. So on
my knees I went with a determination to pray all night. Some time in the morning I awoke,
and found I had been asleep on my knees; and so there was poor I who had cut off one
poor old man for going to sleep in prayer and another for saying he should not wonder if I
got intoxicated, actually getting intoxicated, and going to sleep in prayer myself into the
bargain. There was the sentence of death upon all my joy and all my comfort; and for
several months after that, I walked in the very depth of agony and distress, such as I
could never describe ; so much so that if any child of God came into my company who
knew the preciousness of Christ, I believed they would see it directly we began to
converse, and go and tell all the people in the village (for I knew everybody, and they
knew me), and that I should go wandering about like Cain with a mark upon me; and so I
kept out of their company. And then the enemy of souls would come in: "Where is your
peace with God now? Where is your power in, prayer now? Where is your meekness, your
humility, and your tenderness of conscience now? Where is your hope in the Lord now?
Where is your trust in the God of Israel now? And where are you?" "Ah! Lord," I was
obliged to say, "I do not know where I am, nor what I am, nor what the end will be." The
sentence of death was passed upon the whole. And, perhaps, there is some poor soul
who really has had the sentence of death upon all he has had and all he has enjoyed,
upon all he has done and all he thought he was capable of doing - "Well," say you, "that
is just my case." Then if you have passed through this path and had your hopes of a
religious nature (as far as they have been formed in flesh) all cut off, and the sentence of
death has come upon you and mowed you down and rooted you up, made you feel as dry
as the bones in Ezekiel's vision, I believe he will come in his own blessed time, and that
the sentence of death is bound upon you that you may not trust in yourself, but be
brought feelingly and spiritually to trust in the living God.
But even after the Lord has delivered you, selfworks up in a variety of ways: "Now I will
be more watchful; I will be more cautious and tender; I will not be so rush. I will keep my
eyes open, and my ears open, and my heart open to the truth, and I will walk more
circumspectly and steadily, that I may not again bring the sentence of death upon my joys
and my peace, and that I may not again get into this trouble." Well for a little time,
perhaps, you maintain it; perhaps not a week. You begin to be incautious; you get into
company, perhaps, and a light and trifling spirit comes over you, and you let out it few
light and trifling words; and those words come, like daggers to your heart and strike you
to death. The sentence of death is upon you again. And thus you go on, from time to time;
and the sentence of death upon all your hopes and expectations that spring from self in
any hearings of it whatever.
But by and by you got to what you think a sweeter frame of mind than this. You have
some sweet peace and heavenly joy, some blessed intercourse with the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit, some divine springings up of love and of patience. Then God
puts you into circumstances to try your patience; and you take it patiently too, meekly
and resignedly, as it becomes you. You also give some demonstrative proof that 'the fear
of God awes you and draws you, that you really do act more as becomes a child of God,
and that there is rare tenderness of conscience maintained. And now, if you are not led by
the Spirit of God to beware, you will begin to trust in this tenderness of conscience and
patience and meekness of yours.
Really, brethren, I hardly know how to decide the matter; for I feel it very difficult to
maintain a distinction in my own conscience, betwixt being satisfied without feeling and
making feeling my trust. I believe an unfeeling religion is the devil's own religion, and is
not the religion of the Son of God; and yet to put trust in the feelings rather than in the
God whence they come, is insulting the Spring-head, insulting the Fountain. But we are
as prone in some of our sweet feelings, to put a little trust and confidence in our feelings
as we are to breathe. And then the Lord takes these feelings away and we have none to
trust. Then the enemy tells us it has all been a delusion, all a deception, and we have no
real, vital godliness; for if we had and these feelings had been real, we should have
remained in them. Perhaps I am speaking in the ears of some who "know they are not
going to be such crazy fools as that; they have more sense." Let me tell you God's
people's religion is not a common-sense religion; they cannot move on by a common
sense religion. They find it has the sentence of death in it, and they sink under it, because
there, is no ground of rest in it. And so, perhaps, they go to the Lord, and say, Lord, how
is it? I really wish to love thee and to live in thy fear I desire to honor thee. I want to have
my mind stayed upon thy precious, manifested mercy. I should not like to degrade the
religion that I profess, nor to bring reproof upon thy name; and, dear Lord, thou knowest I
cannot be happy -without having some sweet moments of intercourse with thee, How is it,
then, that I should be so barren and cold, so hard and wandering, and that all my
comforts and sweet feelings seem to go, and I am left to be in such a cold and indifferent
frame?" Have you never been there? If you have not, I know who has; and the Lord has
come with such a passage as this: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in
the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." Or, "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount
Zion, which cannot be moved." " Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord." " Cursed
be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm." Why, this staggers us. "Lord,
we say, "what is it to trust in thee'? I should like to trust in thee I want to trust in thee; tell
me what it is. Did I not trust in thee, Lord, when I enjoyed thy presence find felt the power
of thy love; when my soul was satisfied with the love and blood of the dear Redeemer,
and I poured out my soul to him ? Tell me, Lord, what it is to trust in thee, and enable me
to do it; for I want to trust in thee." And then, perhaps, such a portion as our text will
come: "We have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God which raiseth the dead;" and God begins to explain the mystery,--that though
all those sweet frames, sweet feelings, sweet manifestations of mercy were his work, our
trusting in them was the work of self; and the, Lord will cut off this arm of self, and let us
have no self of ours to bring before him, and thus make us know that our rest is in the
Lord as the God of salvation, and our boast in his confidence and not our own. And so
"We have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we, should not trust in ourselves.`
II. But we shall pass on to notice the design -that this is to cut us off from all our self-
trust.
"Why, then," say you, - "does it not make us miserable? Miserable! Why, suppose you
were a skillful surgeon, and went to see a patient, and the patient's complaint was of that
nature that it led him to deceptive views, and that he needed some painful operation to
cure him. The operation would not be pleasant; but there is a needs-be for it. There are
deceptive views,-I had almost said a state of derangement; and they need some, very
painful operations cure them. And so, bless be our God who knows what poor, deranged
creatures we are, and what false views we have, and what false movement we make; and,
as Hart says in one of his hymns,
"Make e'en grace a snare."
We turn to a wrong use the revelation of God makes of his love, and instead of trusting in
the Lord, put our trust in our own management of what the Lord has done in us. And
indeed I do not wonder at this being the case with the Lord's people; for the ministers tell
them they must do it,- the must cultivate faith, and cultivate love and cultivate hope, and
cultivate confidence. When I hear men talk in this way, it sounds to me as though a farmer
were to take a piece of barren ground in hand and when he brought his plough and his
manure and harrow upon it and began to knock about and spread his manure, and so
cultivate the land, someone were to get up and say to the land, "You must cultivate the
plough; you must cultivate the harrow, you must cultivate the manure." Why would you
not think the man crazy? It is the plough and the manure and the harrow that are to
cultivate the land. And so it is our God that by the communication of his love to the
conscience by the power of the Spirit is to cultivate our barren souls; and he will make he
says the desert to blossom as the rose. It is the Lord's grace that is to cultivate us. And
when we begin to cultivate, instead of submitting to God's cultivation, why, then the
sentence of death must come upon it, "that we should not trust in ourselves but in God
that raises the dead".
I do not know whether you have felt it or not; but I solemnly have felt, in hundreds of
instances, that I need this sentence of death to keep me from self trust,-as a minister and
in every stage that I have passed through life. Sometimes I have been prone to think "Now
I have so many passages of Scripture turned down that have been very sweet to me when
I have been reading them. I have them ready to preach from; I can turn to one of them
when I choose, and go with my text and subject made ready, in order that the people may
be benefited." And when I have gone there has been the sentence of death upon me; not
a passage that would fit me, not a passage that I could fit. All my cultivation would not
bring one passage into my conscience, nor my conscience into one passage. I have been
as deathly and cold and unable to lay hold of a single passage of God's Word to come
before the people with as I was the first moment that I was brought to speak in his Name;
and sometimes I have been ready to think that I never did speak anything, and never shall
be able. And I have to go groaning and sighing and panting and crying; and what is worse
than that, at times I really cannot groan, nor sigh, nor pant, nor cry. 0," say you, "you
must be a queer creature indeed." Indeed I am; and that is just what I am; so that I can
neither trust myself for praying, nor trust myself for preaching, nor trust myself for
hoping, nor trust myself for confidence. I often tell the Lord to keep and to be with me;
"for, Lord, thou knowest that I am neither fit to be trusted with myself, nor trusted in
company, nor trusted anywhere; and I can put no confidence in myself in any sense
whatever."
Now, has the Lord brought you there? If he has, you have been necessarily weaned from
self trust. And yet you will get at it again, This cursed pride of ours, do what we may, will
be making us in a measure pass by the Lord, and not trust in him. And all the cuttings up
you have, all the harrowings of your feelings, all the death of your enjoyment and your
comfort and your imaginary power to keep your peace and your happiness,-if you are a
child of God, the Lord sees it all necessary to wean you from the cursed pride of trusting
in yourselves, that there may be nothing but a sinner saved by the grace of God, and that
Jesus may be glorified in the manifestation of his grace in saving your soul. And so we
have the sentence of death in self, that we may not trust in self.
I tell you, brethren, do not you venture to trust yourselves anywhere, unless you can, in
some small measure, find that you have been led to put your trust in God. Now I have
known men to be very inquisitive concerning other people's practices, and be led to
conclude they were not altogether walking very becomingly, and they >have watched
them cautiously that they might be able, as they thought, to give them seasonable rebuke
and reproof; but they never dreamed that all the time in watching them they might create
the same working in themselves, till it actually came, and they were in the very same
snare, and felt that God had to give them a reproof; and thus cured them of self-trusting.
And I would advise you, in the Name of the Lord, do not trust your eyes, do not trust your
ears, do not trust yourselves, without the Lord being your Guide for really we are not fit to
be trusted for a moment. And so the Lord will bring us to have the sentence of death in
ourselves, "that we should not trust in ourselves."
III. Now, lastly, the great design is to bring as to trust in God that raiseth the dead.". This
is a blessed expression - -God that raiseth the dead." He raised Christ from the dead; he
raiseth us from our death in sin. He raised the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision: and if you
and I have had the sentence of death in ourselves, we have been there. We know how it
was with those bones, when they were all distorted, and no bone seemed in its proper
place, and there was neither flesh nor sinews; and when flesh and sinews came, and the
judgment appeared to get bold of some truth, still there seemed to be no life and no
motion, till the Spirit of God sent life. Therefore we know a little of what he can do in
raising the dead.
"That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God." Trust him for what? Trust him for
pardon, manifested pardon, again and again. "But," say you, -"we do not want fresh
pardon; for God pardons all at once." But we want fresh manifestations of it. Suppose I
were a farmer, and had my rick-yard full of stacks of corn, and my granary full, and my
fields full of cattle, so that I had as much food as would last my family two or three years,
could I sit down and say, -Now I want no bread-making and no cooking? I have plenty in
the yard, and the granary, and the fields, and that is enough for me." I should cut a poor
figure with all my plenty; I should die, you know. The Lord has told us that there is
fullness in Jesus Christ; but that is nothing for the poor soul, unless it has a little of the
manifestation of it and enjoyment of it. If a hungry man, -who has been working in the
field for six or seven hours, comes in to sit down to a meal, and his master says, "Ah,
well! You have done your work well; sit down. There is plenty of food in the barn and in
the cupboard to last you for years; so be content." "Yes," says the man, "but I want to
taste a little of it; knowing it is there is not enough." And God's people want to be feeling,
and tasting, and handling of the Word of life. They do not want merely the judgment-
knowledge of it,-that there is enough; they want the feeling enjoyment of it,-to have it
brought into their consciences. They ask God for fresh communications of pardon. Fresh
lottings down of pence into the conscience, fresh revelations of the glory of Christ and of
their interest in him. And they are led to trust in the Lord for it. Trust in the Lord, says
God, and then shalt be established. They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion."
And thus the Lord puts us off from all self-trust, in order to bring us to a solemn and
sweet trust in Christ for the blessed openings of this to the mind; that so we may be led
to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; without which we have no
life in us. He does not say, " You must believe there is enough in me" but there most be
an eating and drinking, a spiritually entering into the vitality of it, by the power of that
vitality entering into you, And I tell you, in the Name of the living God, that if God never
gives you an entering into the vitality of this truth, as God lives you will be damned,-If the
Lord the Spirit never gives you a vital experience of Divine truth in the conscience. If you
are his people. he will bring you from all self-trust to trust in him for the vital
manifestation of the mysteries of his cross to your soul; that you may know blessedly
and vitally what it is to have the Lord for your strength and your succor and find support.
"We have the sentence, of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in
God," to keep us in time of temptation. This was the case with David. Not when he was on
the house-top. No, no, poor soul; but when he was brought to his right mind, he was
brought feelingly and spiritually to say, "Hold then me up, and I shall be safe." "Keep
back thy servant from presumptuous, sins." Why, David! Could you not hold yourself up,
so famous a man as you, so much of the presence of God as you have enjoyed? And
"presumptuous sins!" Is there any danger of a man of God like you, who have had such
manifestations of Divine, favor, getting into presumptuous sins ? Aye, there was; and
God convinced him of it by strange methods, till he was brought of necessity to know that
his trust was in the Lord; and so he says, -"Hold me up, and keep me back, Lord." And so
with poor Moses. Whom he had to lead Israel, he said, -"If thy presence go not with us
carry us not up hence." He felt himself incapable of managing either himself or the
people.
Our trust, therefore, is in God, for strength to keep us in the hour of temptation, to keep
us from the workings of in-bred corruption, the snares of the devil, and the allurements of
the world to keep us from all those bewitching things that are suited to flesh and blood.
And we have to trust in the 'Lord for the opening of his promises and the mysteries of his
love, in bringing again the sweet sense of the love of Christ, the blood of Christ, and the
power of Christ into the heart, and leading, us into it- so that there may be a sweet
coming of Christ into us and a going out of self into Christ, 'May you be enabled to trust
in Christ, then, poor soul, if you want real comfort and real support.
"But," say some poor soul, "how dare I venture, to trust in the Lord when I have such a
dead heart and conscience?" Do you not see, poor soul, it is God that raiseth the dead?
He raises us again out of those deathly frames and feelings that we have to go through.
And there is no saying what the Lord cannot do, poor creature. He can come into the
deepest depth of thy death and wretchedness, and lift, thee out of it all, and lift thee into
himself. May God bless you and me with a feeling sense of solemn confidence in him.
Amen, and amen.
-William Gadsby