then hinted something about free grace; but that he could not endure, it was to him foolishness. He was a polished Greek, and thought that if he were not chosen, he ought to be. He never liked that passage — “God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are.” He thought it was very discreditable to the Bible; and when the book was revised, he had no doubt it would be cut out. To such a man — for he is here this morning, very likely come to hear this reed shaken in the wind — I have to say this: Ah! you wise man, full of worldly wisdom; your wisdom will stand you in good stead here, but what will you do in the swellings of Jordan? Philosophy may do well for you to lean upon while you walk through this world; but the river is deep, and you will want something more than that. If you have not the arm of the Most High to hold you up in the flood and cheer you with promises, you will sink, man; with all your philosophy, you will sink; with all your learning, you shall sink, and be washed into that awful ocean of eternal torment, where you shall be for ever. Ah! Greeks, it may be foolishness to you, but you shall see the Man your Judge, and then you shall rue the day that ever you said that God’s gospel was foolishness.
10. II. Having spoken thus far upon the gospel rejected, I shall now briefly speak upon the GOSPEL TRIUMPHANT. “To us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Yonder man rejects the gospel, despises grace, and laughs at it as a delusion. Here is another man who laughed at it too; but God will fetch him down upon his knees. Christ shall not die for nothing. The Holy Spirit shall not strive in vain. God has said, “My word shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be abundantly satisfied.” If one sinner is not saved, another shall be. The Jew and the Greek shall never depopulate heaven. The choirs of glory shall not lose a single songster by all the opposition of Jews and Greeks; for God has said it; some shall be called; some shall be saved; some shall be rescued.
Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,
And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.
The atonement a Redeemer’s love has wrought
Is not for you — the righteous need it not.
See that prostitute wooing all she meets,
The wornout nuisance of the public streets,
Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,
Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn:
The gracious shower, unlimited and free,
Shall fall on her when heaven denies it thee.
Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift,
That man is dead in sin, and life a gift.
If the righteous and good are not saved, if they reject the gospel, there are others who are to be called, others who shall be rescued, for Christ will not lose the merits of his agonies, or the purchase of his blood.
11. “To us who are called.” I received a note this week asking me to explain that word called; because in one passage it says, “Many are called but few are chosen,” while in another it appears that all who are called must be chosen. Now, let me observe that there are two calls. As my old friend John Bunyan says, “The hen has two calls, the common cluck, which she gives daily and hourly, and the special one which she means for her little chickens.” So there is a general call, a call made to every man; every man hears it. Many are called by it; you are all called this morning in that sense; but very few are chosen. The other is a special call, the children’s call. You know how the bell sounds over the workshop to call the men to work — that is a general call. A father goes to the door and calls out, “John, it is dinner time!” — that is the special call. Many are called with the general call, but they are not chosen; the special call is for the children only, and that is what is meant in the text, “To us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” That call is always a special one. While I stand here and call men, no one comes; while I preach to sinners universally, no good is done; it is like the sheet lightning you sometimes see on the summer’s evening, beautiful, grand, but who has ever heard of anything being struck by it? But the special call is the forked flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere, it is the arrow sent in between the joints of the harness. The call which saves, is like that of Jesus, when he said, “Mary,” and she said to him, “Rabboni.” Do you know anything about that special call my beloved? Did Jesus ever call you by name? Can you remember the hour when he whispered your name in your ear, when he said, “Come to me?” If so, you will grant the truth of what I am going to say next about it, — that it is an effectual call. There is no resisting it. When God calls with his special call, there is no withstanding it. Ah! I know I laughed at religion; I despised, I abhorred it; but that call! Oh! I would not come. But God said, “You shall come. All that the Father gives to me shall come.” “Lord, I will not.” “But you shall,” said God. And I have gone up to God’s house sometimes almost with a resolution that I would not listen, but listen I must. Oh! how the word came into my soul! Was there a power of resistance? No; I was thrown down; each bone seemed to be broken; I was saved by effectual grace. I appeal to your experience, my friends. When God took you in hand, could you withstand him? You stood against your minister times enough. Sickness did not break you down; disease did not bring you to God’s feet; eloquence did not convince you; but when God put his hand to the work, ah! then what a change; like Saul, with his horses going to Damascus, that voice from heaven said, “I am Jesus whom you persecute.” “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” There was no going further then. That was an effectual call. Like that, again, which Jesus gave to Zacchaeus, when he was up in the tree: stepping under the tree, he said, “Zacchaeus, come down, today I must abide at your house.” Zacchaeus, was taken in the net; he heard his own name; the call sank into his soul; he could not stay up in the tree, for an Almighty impulse drew him down. And I could tell you some singular instances of people going to the house of God and having their characters described, painted to perfection, so that they have said, “He is painting me, he is painting me.” Just as I might say to that young man here who stole his master’s gloves yesterday, that Jesus calls him to repentance. It may be that there is such a person here; and when the call comes to a peculiar character, it generally comes with a special power. God gives his ministers a brush, and shows them how to use it in painting life-like portraits, and thus the sinner hears the special call. I cannot give the special call; God alone can give it, and I leave it with him. Some must be called. Jew and Greek may laugh, but still there are some who are called, both Jews and Greeks.
12. Then to close up this second point, it is a great mercy that many a Jew has been made to drop his self-righteousness; many a legalist has been made to drop his legalism and come to Christ, many a Greek has bowed his genius at the throne of God’s gospel. We have a few such here. As Cowper says:
We boast some rich ones whom the gospel sways,
And one who wears a coronet and prays;
Like gleamings of an olive tree they show,
Here and there one upon the topmost bough.
13. III. Now we come to our third point, A GOSPEL ADMIRED; to us who are called of God, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now, beloved, this must be a matter of pure experience between your souls and God. If you are called by God this morning, you will know it. I know there are times when a Christian has to say,
’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?
But if a man never in his life knew himself to be a Christian, he never was a Christian. If he never had a moment of confidence, when he could say, “Now I know in whom I have believed,” I think I do not utter a harsh thing when I say, that that man could not have been born again; for I do not understand how a man can be born again, and not know it; I do not understand