Beloved, let us comfort ourselves with this thought, that in our case, as in Simon's, it is not our cross, but Christ's cross which we carry. When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered. Oh! why hast thou forsaken me?" "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" this is the Lord Jesus in kingly power, opening with the key of David a door which none can shut, admitting into the gates of heaven the poor soul who had confessed him on the tree. How has it been with you? There are no passages in all the public ministry of Jesus so tender as those which have regard to Jerusalem. Therefore while he thirsts give him to drink this day. Think, dear friends, there are some in this congregation who as yet have no interest in Jesu's blood, some sitting next to you, your nearest friends who, if they were now to close their eyes in death, would open them in hell! Our Lord says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," that thirst being the result of sin in every ungodly man at this moment. III. It is not likely that we shall be able to worship with their worship. They would be very proper, very proper; God forbid that we should stay them, except with the gentle words of Christ, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me." Now, I am not sure that we ought to blame ourselves for this. There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom. Let there be nothing but your religion to object to, and then if that offends them let them be offended, it is a cross which you must carry joyfully. Take up your cross daily and follow him. Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell upon every syllable of these matchless cries. The extreme tension produced a burning feverishness. Oh! "And they took Jesus, and led him away." Romish expositors, who draw upon their prolific fancy for their facts, tell us that he had a rope about his neck with which they roughly dragged him to the tree; this is one of the most probable of their surmises, since it was not unusual for the Romans thus to conduct criminals to the gallows. "And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes," vinegar, and not wine; sourness, and not sweetness. Sit at his feet with Mary, lean on his breast with John; yea, come with the spouse in the song and say, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine." His great love makes him thirst to have us much nearer than we are; he will never be satisfied till all his redeemed are beyond gunshot of thee enemy. 1. Rutherford says, "Whenever Christ gives us a cross, he cries, 'Halves, my love.'" As he commends his spirit into the Father's hand, so does he bring all believers nigh to God, and henceforth we are in the hand of the Father, who is greater than all, and none shall pluck us thence. A carnal appetite of the body, the satisfaction of the desire for food, first brought us down under the first Adam, and now the pang of thirst, the denial of what the body craved for, restores us to our place. The woes which broke the Savior's heart must crush theirs. I. For several Sabbath mornings my mind has been directed into subjects which I might fitly call the deep things of God. The lictors executed their cruel office upon his shoulders with their rods and scourges, until the stripes had reached the full number. You may sit under a sermon, and feel a great deal, but your feeling is worthless unless it leads you to weep for yourselves and for your children. We may therefore come before him, with all the rest of our race, when God subdues them to repentance by his love, and look on him whom we have pierced, and mourn for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality: at the first there was no room for him at the inn, and at the last there was not one cool cup of water for him to drink; but when he thirsted they gave him vinegar to drink. Let us muse upon the fact that Jesus was conducted without the gates of the city. I know he loves to receive from you, because he delights even in a cup of cold water that you give to one of his disciples; how much more will he delight in the giving of your whole self to him? I saw the other day the emblem of a serpent with its tail in its mouth, and if I carry it a little beyond the artist's intention the symbol may set forth appetite swallowing up itself. I will give you one of his thirsty prayers "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Then they said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck Him with their hands. Scripture provides a wealth . ye Christian men, who dream of trimming your sails to the wind, who seek to win the world's favor, I do beseech you cease from a course so perilous. They prefer a ceremonial pompous and gaudy; the swell of music, the glitter of costly garments, the parade of learning all these must minister grandeur to the world's religion, and thus shut out the simple followers of the Lamb. Glorious stoop of our exalted Head! Do not let the picture vanish till you have satisfied yourselves once for all that Christ was here the substitute for you. "I thirst" meant that his heart was thirsting to save men. Then comes the "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That little rising ground, which perhaps was called Golgotha, the place of a skull, from its somewhat resembling the crown of a man's skull, was the common place of execution. The "I thirst" was the bearing of the last pang; what if I say it was the expression of the fact that his pangs had at last begun to cease, and their fury had spent itself, and left him able to note his lessor pains? It was pain that dried his mouth and made it like an oven, till he declared, in the language of the twenty-second psalm, "My tongue cleaveth to my jaws." "I thirst," is his human body tormented by grievous pain. These solemn sentences have shone like the seven golden candlesticks or the seven stars of the Apocalypse, and have lighted multitudes of men to him who spake them. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Even now to a large extent the true Christian is like a Pariah, lower than the lowest caste, in the judgment of some. Brother, thirst to have your children save. Jesus thirsted, then let us thirst in this dry and thirsty land where no water is. John 19:1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. Then came, "Women, behold thy son!" The great agony of being forsaken by God was over, and he felt faint when the strain was withdrawn. O to be enlarged in soul so as to take deeper draughts of his sweet love, for our heart cannot have enough. Christ was always thirsty to save men, and to be loved of men; and we see a type of his life-long desire when, being weary, he sat thus on the well and said to the woman of Samaria, "Give me to drink." And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. Now Christ standing in the stead of the ungodly suffers thirst as a type of his enduring the result of sin. I wonder he has ever received them, as one marvels why he received this vinegar; and yet he has received them, and smiled upon us for presenting them. Lectures to My Students - Charles Haddon Spurgeon 1889 Lessons from the Apostle Paul's Prayers - Charles Spurgeon 2018-02-19 Why study and pray the prayers of the Apostle Paul? In the fourth place, one or two words upon CHRIST'S FELLOW-SUFFERERS. We do not read that they removed the crown of thorns, and therefore it is most probable, though not absolutely certain, that our Savior wore it along the Via Dolorosa, and also bore it upon his head when he was fastened to the cross. It came from the parched lips of the Divine Victim towards the close of his agony, and after the darkness which endured from the sixth to the ninth hour. Did we not do so years ago before we knew him? Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was born in Essex, England. I am not the One anointed of God to save mankind. John 1:21. Beware of rendering him homage and dishonouring his name at the same time. There are more unlikely things than that you will be dead before next Sunday. Of the many benefits we have in learning from Paul, a few stand out:1. We shall by the assistance of the Holy Spirit try to regard these words of our Saviour in a five-fold light. John Chapter 19 - In-depth, verse-by-verse commentary and Bible study of John chapter 19 in plain English. While other religions create what appear to be worship-filled gatherings, they are empty and void of fact. London shall see the glory of the one: Jerusalem beheld the shame of the other. May we not despise our loaded table while he is neglected? (1-3) Jesus enters the garden, followed by Judas and his troops. The most careless eye discerns it. This was the homage which the Son of God received from men; harmless and gentle, he came here with no purpose but that of doing good, and this is how mankind treated him. Acts 19 Acts 19 He preached in the same church as C. H. Spurgeon over one hundred years earlier. The conquest of the appetites, the entire subjugation of the flesh, must be achieved, for before our great Exemplar said, "It is finished," wherein methinks he reached the greatest height of all, he stood as only upon the next lower step to that elevation, and said, "I thirst." Pilate, as we reminded you, scourged our Savior according to the common custom of Roman courts. It is the empty cup placed under the flowing stream; the penniless hand held out for heavenly alms." . The sinful find our conversation distasteful; in our pursuits the carnal have no interest; things dear to us are dross to worldlings, while things precious to them are contemptible to us. This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of God. Go ye, then, like the Master, expecting to be abused, to wear an ill-name, and to earn reproach; go ye, like him, without the camp. That impenitent thief went from the cross of his great agony and it was agony indeed to die on a cross he went to that place, to the flames of hell; and you, too, may go from the bed of sickness, and from the abode of poverty, to perdition, quite as readily as from the home of ease and the house of plenty. And well they may; the son of such noble parents deserves a nation's love. "We, whose proneness to forget Thy dear love, on Olivet Bathed thy brow with bloody sweat; "We whose sins, with awful power, Like a cloud did o'er thee lower, In that God-excluding hour; "We, who still, in thought and dead, Often hold the bitter reed To thee, in thy time of need.". But power is wanted to dash down those idols, to overcome the hosts of error; where is it to be found? Great and worshipful being that he is, truth is to be altered for him, the gospel is to be modulated to suit the tone of his various generations, and all the arrangements of the universe are to be rendered subservient to his interests. They take matters very gently; they think it unnecessary to be soldiers of the cross. John 19:28 . Charles Haddon Spurgeon December 1, 1861 Scripture: John 19:30 From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 7 It is Finished! You do suffer. Romanists pretend to know; in fact they know the very spot where Veronica wiped the blessed face with her handkerchief, and found his likeness impressed upon it; we also know very well where that was not done; in fact they know the very spot where Jesus fainted, and if you go to Jerusalem you can see all these different places if you only carry enough credulity with you; but the fact is the city has been so razed, and burned, and ploughed, that there is little chance of distinguishing any of these positions, with the exception, it may be, of Mount Calvary, which being outside the walls may possibly still remain. The nails were fastened in the most sensitive parts of the body, and the wounds were widened as the weight of his body dragged the nails through his blessed flesh, and tore his tender nerves. It was a confirmation of the Scripture testimony with regard to man's natural enmity to God. I fear me, beloved, I fear me that the most of us if we ever do carry it, carry it by compulsion, at least when it first comes on to our shoulders we do not like it, and would fain run from it, but the world compels us to bear Christ's cross. Save your tears for them; Christ asks them not in sympathy for himself. Thus have I tried to spy out a measure of teaching, by using that one glass for the soul's eye, through which we look upon "I thirst" as the ensign of his true humanity. John 19:16 . Come hither, ye lovers of Immanuel, and I will show you this great sight the King of sorrow marching to his throne of grief, the cross. Oh I raise the question, and be not satisfied unless you can answer it most positively in the affirmative. Every word, therefore, you see teaches us some grand fundamental doctrine of our blessed faith. One word: transformation. Here you see how the mortal flesh had to share in the agony of the inward spirit. I invite your attention to CHRIST AS LED FORTH. Hail, everlasting King in heaven, thou dost admit to thy paradise whomsoever thou wilt! O Lord Jesus, we love thee and we worship thee! I tell you, sirs, that yonder malefactor carried his cross and died on it; and you will carry your sorrows, and be damned with them, except you repent. A strong emphasis in Spurgeon's preaching was God's grace and sovereignty over man's helpless state. Grant me only thus much of likeness: we have here a Prince with his bride, bearing his banner, and wearing his royal robes, traversing the streets of his own city, surrounded by a throng who shout aloud, and a multitude who gaze with interest profound. There are some who in company hold their tongues, and never say a good word for Christ. IV. Godly working-men, should your employers or your fellow-workers frown upon you; wives, should your husbands threaten to cast you out, remember, without the camp was Jesus' place, and without the camp is yours. 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