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TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - Sermons from Psalms (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 009 PSA 17:3 Communion Mediation #1
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COMMUNION MEDITATION
BY
C. H. SPURGEON
1834-1892
PREFATORY NOTE
For many years, it was Mr. Spurgeon's constant custom to observe the
ordinance of the Lord's supper every Sunday, unless illness prevented it.
He believed this was in accordance with apostolic precedent; and it was
his often repeated testimony that the more frequently he obeyed his
Lord's command, "Do this in remembrance of me," the more precious
did his Savior become to him, while the memorial celebration itself proved
increasingly helpful and instructive as the years rolled by.
Several of the discourses here published were delivered to thousands of
communicants in the church he pastored at, while others were addressed
to the little companies of Christians, who gathered around the communion
table in Mr. Spurgeon's living room at his home. The messages cover a
wide range of subjects; but all of them speak more or less fully of the
great atoning sacrifice of which the broken bread and the filled cup are
the simple yet significant symbols.
#1 - MYSTERIOUS VISITS
AN ADDRESS TO A LITTLE COMPANY AT THE
COMMUNION TABLE AT HOME
"You probe my heart and examine me at night . . . " [Psa_17:3]
It is a subject of wonder that the glorious God should visit sinful
man. "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you
care for him?" [Psa_8:4] A divine visit is a joy to be treasured whenever
we are favored with it. David speaks of it with great seriousness. The
Psalmist was not content just to speak of it; but he wrote it down in plain
terms, that it might be known throughout all generations: "You probe my
heart and examine me at night . . . " Beloved, if God has ever visited you,
you also will marvel at it, will carry it in your memory, will speak of it to
your friends, and will record it in your diary as one of the notable events
of your life. Above all, you will speak of it to God Himself, and say with
adoring gratitude, "You probed my heart and examined me at night." It
should be a solemn part of worship to remember and make known the
condescension of the Lord, and say, both in lowly prayer and in joyful song
to God, "You probed my heart."
To you, beloved friends, who gather with me around this communion table,
I will speak of my own experience, not doubting that it is also yours. If
our God has ever visited any of us, personally, by His Spirit, two details
have accompanied the visit--it has been clearly searching, and it has been
sweetly reassuring.
When the Lord first draws near to the heart, the trembling soul
perceives clearly the searching character of His visit. Remember how
Job answered the Lord: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have
seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes"
[Job_42:5-6]. We can read about God, and hear of God, and be moved a
little; but when we feel His presence, it is another matter. I thought my
house was good enough for kings; but when the King of kings came to it, I
saw that it was a shack quite unfit for His dwelling. I would have never
known sin to be so "exceeding sinful" if I had not known God to be so
perfectly holy. I would have never understood the depravity of my own
nature if I had not known the holiness of God's nature. When we see
Jesus, we fall at His feet as if dead; till then, we are alive with a
conceited life. If letters traced by a mysterious hand on the wall caused
the knees of Belshazzar to knock together and his legs to give way, what
dread will overcome our spirits when we see the Lord Himself! In the
presence of so much light our spots and wrinkles are revealed, and we are
utterly ashamed.
We are like Daniel, who said, "I was left alone, gazing at this great vision;
I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless."
[Dan_10:8]. It is when the Lord visits us that we see our nothingness,
and ask, "Lord, what is man?"
I do remember well when God first visited me; and assuredly it was the
night of nature, of ignorance, of sin. His visit had the same effect upon
me that it had upon Saul of Tarsus when the Lord spoke to him out of
heaven. He brought me down from the lofty thoughts about myself, and
caused me to fall to the ground; by the brightness of the light of His
Spirit He made me grope in conscious blindness; and in the brokenness of
my heart I cried, "What shall I do, Lord?" I felt that I had been
rebelling against the Lord, kicking against the goad, and doing as much evil
as I could; and my soul was filled with anguish at the discovery. The
glance of the eye of Jesus was deeply searching, for it revealed my sin,
and caused me to go out and weep bitterly.
Just like when the Lord visited Adam, and called him to stand naked
before Him, so I was stripped of all my righteousness before the face of
the Most High. Yet the visit did not end there; for as the Lord God
clothed our first parents in coats of skins, so He also covered me with the
righteousness of a great sacrifice, and He gave me songs in the night. It
was night, but the visit was no dream: in fact, I there and then ceased to
dream, and began to deal with the reality of things.
I think you will remember that, when the Lord first visited you in the
night, it was the same with you as it was with Peter when Jesus came to
him. He had been toiling with his net all the night, and nothing had come
of it; but when the Lord Jesus came into his boat, and asked to him launch
out into the deep, and to let down his net, he caught such a great
multitude of fishes that the boat began to sink. See! the boat goes down,
down, till the water threatens to engulf it, and Peter, and the fish, and all.
Then Peter fell down at Jesus' knees, and cried, "Go away from me, Lord;
I am a sinful man!" The presence of Jesus was too much for him: his sense
of unworthiness made him sink like his boat, and shrink away from the
Divine Lord.
I remember that sensation well; for I was half inclined to cry with the
demoniac of the Gadarenes, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of
the Most High God?" That first discovery of His wounded love was
overpowering; its very hopefulness increased my anguish; for then I saw
that I had slain the Lord who had come to save me. I saw that it was my
hand which made the hammer fall, and drove the nails that fastened the
Redeemer's hands and feet to the cross.
"My conscience felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair;
I saw my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there."
This is the sight which breeds repentance: "They will look on [Him], the
one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him." When the Holy
Spirit visits us, He humbles us, removes all hardness from our hearts, and
leads us to the Savior's feet.
When the Lord first visited us in the night it was very much with us as
with John, when the Lord visited Him in the isle that is called Patmos. He
tells us, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead." Yes, even
when we begin to see that He has put away our sin, and removed our guilt
by His death, we feel as if we could never look up again, because we have
been so cruel to our best Friend. It is no wonder if we then say, "It is
true that He has forgiven me; but I never can forgive myself. He makes
me live, and I live in Him; but at the thought of His goodness I fall at
His feet as dead. Boasting is dead, self is dead, and all desire for
anything beyond my Lord is dead also." The song says it well:
"That dear hour, that brought me to His foot,
And cut up all my follies by the root."
The process of destroying foolish notions is better performed at Jesus'
feet than anywhere else. Oh, that the Lord would come again to us as at
the first, and like a consuming fire discover and burn up the trash which
now litters our life! The word "probe" brings to us who travel the
remembrance of the government officer who searches our baggage; thus
the Lord does seek out our secret things. But it also reminds us of the
probes of the physician, who not only finds out our disorders, but also
removes them. Thus the Lord Jesus probed us when we were first saved.
Since those early days, I hope that you and I have had many visits from
our Lord. Those first visits were, as I said, sharply searching; but the
later ones have been sweetly comforting. Some of us have had them,
especially in the night, when we have been compelled to count the
sleepless hours. "Heaven's gate opens when this world's is shut." The
night is still; everybody is asleep; work is done; care is forgotten, and
then the Lord Himself draws near.
Possibly there may be pain to be endured, the head may be aching, and
the heart may be throbbing; but if Jesus comes to visit us, our bed of
illness becomes a throne of glory. Though it is true "He grants sleep to
those He loves," yet at such times He gives them something better than
sleep, namely; His own presence, and the fullness of joy which comes with
it. By night on our bed we have seen the unseen. I have tried sometimes
not to sleep under an excess of joy, when the company of Christ has been
sweetly mine.
"You probe my heart and examine me at night." Believe me, there are
such things as personal probing visits from Jesus to His people. He has
not completely left us. Though He is not seen with the eyes of the body
by a bush or by a brook, nor on the mountain, nor by the sea, yet He does
come and go, observed only by the spirit, felt only by the heart. Still
He stands behind the walls of our life, He Himself looks through the
windows of our heart.
"Jesus, these eyes have never seen
That radiant form of Yours!
The veil of understanding hangs dark between
Your blessed face and mine!
"I do not see You, I do not hear You,
Yet You are often with me,
And on earth there is never so dear a spot
As where I meet with You.
"Like some bright dream that comes unsought,
When sleep rolls over me,
Your image always fills my thought,
And charms my ravished soul.
"Yet though I have not seen, and still
Must rest in faith alone;
I love You, dearest Lord! and will,
Unseen, but not unknown."
Do you ask me to describe these manifestations of the Lord?
It is hard to tell you in words: you must know them for yourselves. If you
had never tasted sweetness, no man living could give you an idea of honey.
Yet if the honey is there, you can "taste and see." To a man born blind,
sight is a thing beyond imagination; and to one who has never known the
Lord, His probing visits are quite as much beyond conception.
For our Lord to probe us is something beyond the assurance of our
salvation, though that is very delightful, and none of us should rest
satisfied unless we possess it. To know that Jesus loves me, is one thing;
but to be visited by Him in love, is more.
Nor is it simply a close contemplation of Christ; for we can picture Him as
exceedingly fair and majestic, and yet not have Him consciously near us.
Delightful and enlightening as it is to behold the likeness of Christ by
meditation, yet the enjoyment of His actual presence is something more.
I may carry my friend's picture with me, and yet am not able to say, "You
have visited me and examined me."
It is the actual, though spiritual, coming of Christ which we desire so
much. The Roman Catholic Church falsely says a lot about the "real
presence" thereby meaning, the physical presence of the Lord Jesus. The
priest who celebrates mass tells us that he believes in the "literal
presence," but we reply, "No, you believe you know Christ in His flesh, but
the only real presence of Christ in the flesh is in heaven; but we firmly
believe in the real presence of Christ which is spiritual, and yet very
real." By spiritual we do not mean unreal; in fact, the spiritual becomes
real to spiritual men. I believe in the true and real presence of Jesus
with His people: such presence has been real to my spirit. Lord Jesus, You
Yourself have probed my heart and examined me at night. As surely as the
Lord Jesus came in His flesh to Bethlehem and Calvary, so surely does He
really come by His Spirit to His people in the hours of their communion
with Him. We are as conscious of that presence just as much as we are
conscious our own existence.
When the Lord visits us in the night, what is the effect on us? When
heart meets heart in fellowship of love, communion first brings peace,
then rest, and then joy of soul. I am not speaking of emotional
excitement rising into a fanatical rapture; but I speak of a sober fact,
when I say that the Lord's great heart touches ours, and our heart rises
into understanding with Him.
First, we experience peace. All war is over, and a blessed peace is
proclaimed; the peace of God settles our heart and mind through Christ
Jesus.
"Peace! perfect peace! in this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.
"Peace! perfect peace! with sorrows surging around?
On Jesus' chest nothing but calm is found."
At such a time there is a delightful sense of rest; we have no ambitions,
no desires. A divine serenity and security surrounds us. We have no
thought of foes, or fears, or afflictions, or doubts. There is a joyous
laying aside of our own will. We are nothing, Christ is everything, and His
will is the pulse of our soul. We are perfectly content either to be sick or
well, to be rich or poor, to be slandered or honored, only that we may live
in the love of Christ. Jesus fills our whole being.
At such a time a flood of great joy will fill our minds. We will half wish
that the morning may never appear again, for fear its light should banish
the superior light of Christ's presence. We will wish that we could glide
away with our Beloved to the place where He walks among the lilies. We
long to hear the voices of the white-robed armies, that we may follow
their glorious Leader wherever He goes. I am persuaded that there
is no great actual distance between earth and heaven: the distance
lies in our dull minds. When the Beloved visits us in the night, He makes
our bedrooms to be the foyer of His palace.
Earth rises to heaven when heaven comes down to earth.
Now, beloved friends, you may be saying to yourselves, "We have not
enjoyed such probing visits as these." You may feel free to do so. If the
Father loves you even as He loves His Son, then you are on visiting terms
with Him. If, then, He has not called upon you, you will be wise to call on
Him. Breathe a sigh to Him, and say,--
"When will You come to me, Lord?
Oh come, my Lord most dear!
Come near, come nearer, nearer still,
I'm blest when You are near.
"When will You come to me, Lord?
I long for the sight;
Ten thousand suns when You are hid,
Are shades instead of light.
"When will You come to me, Lord?
Until You do appear,
I count each moment for a day,
Each minute for a year."
"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O
God!" If you long for Him, He much more longs for you. Never was there
a sinner that was half so eager for Christ as Christ is eager for the
sinner; nor a saint one-tenth so anxious to behold his Lord as his Lord is
to behold him. If you are running to Christ, He is already near you. If
you cry out for His presence, that cry is the evidence that He is with
you. He is with you now: therefore calmly be glad.
Go forth, beloved, and talk with Jesus on the beach, for He often
resorted to the seashore. Commune with Him amid the olive groves so
dear to Him in many a night of wrestling prayer. I often dream that I am
looking out upon the Lake of Gennesaret, or walking at the foot of the
Mount of Olives, or peering into the mysterious gloom of the Garden of
Gethsemane. The narrow streets which Jesus traversed, the villages that
He inhabited. Have your hearts right with Him, and He will visit and
examine you often, until it happens everyday and you walk daily with God,
as Enoch did, and so turn the mundane weekdays into Worshipful Sundays,
meals into the Lord's Table, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.
So be it with us! Amen.
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