A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Evening, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. 5/3/2011*5/3/2011

What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me? (Psalms 116:12)

1. Deep emotion prompts this question; but where are the depths of love and gratitude that can meet its exuberant demands? You will perhaps remember an incident in the life of a famous soldier, who also became a famous Christian, Colonel James Gardiner. One night, when he was little thinking of divine things, but on the contrary had made an appointment of the most vicious kind, he was waiting for the appointed hour, when he saw, or thought he saw before him in the room where he sat alone, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, and he was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him to this effect — “Oh sinner, I did all this for you; what have you done for me?” Some such representation as that I would put before the eyes of every person in this assembly. I earnestly pray that the vision of the Christ of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, may appear to all your eyes, and may a voice say in your conscience, both to saint and sinner, “I did all this for you; what have you done for me?” It will probably be a humiliating night for all of us, if such should be the case, but humiliation may prove to be healthy for us; yes, the very healthiest frame of mind in which we can be found.

2. I. I shall first of all this evening, invite you to TALLY UP A SUM IN ARITHMETIC.

3. The text suggests this. “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me?” Come, let us count up, though I know that the number will surpass all human enumeration, let us try to count up his benefits towards any one of us. I wish each one of you, distinctly and individually, would now endeavour to think of the mercy of God towards yourself.

4. First, let us review the roll of our temporal mercies. They are only secondary, but they are very valuable. There is a special providence in the endowment of life to each individual creature. David did not disdain to trace back the hand of God to the hour of his nativity; and Paul adored the grace of God that separated him from the time that his mother gave him birth. Our gratitude may, in like manner, revert to the days when we were nursed by our mothers; or in the case of some, you may thank the goodness that supplied the lack of a mother’s tender love. Childhood’s early days might then make our thoughts busy, and our tongues vocal with praise. But here we are now. We have been preserved, some of us, these thirty or forty years. We might have been cut down, and punished in our sin. We might have been swept away to the place where despair makes eternal night. But we have been kept alive in the midst of many accidents. By some marvellous providence, death has been turned aside just as it seemed, with a straight course, to be speeding towards us. When fierce diseases have been waiting around to hurry us to our last home, we have still escaped. Nor have we merely existed. God has been pleased to give us food and clothing, and a place to lay our weary heads. To many here present he has given all the comforts of this life, until they can say, “My cup runs over; I have more than heart can wish for.” To all here he has given enough, and although you may have passed through many straits, yet your food has been given to you, and your water has been sure. Is this not cause for thankfulness? You cannot think of a shivering beggar tonight in the streets, you cannot think of the hundreds of thousands in this unhappy country — unhappy for that reason — who have no shelter except such as the poorhouse can afford them, and no food except such as is doled out to them as a pauper’s meagre pittance, without being grateful that you have been so far supplied with things convenient for your sustenance, and defended from that bitter, biting penury which palls self-respect, cowers industry, dampens the ardour of resolution, chafes the heart, corrodes the mind, prostrates every vestige of manliness, and leaves manhood itself to be the prey of misery and the victim of despair. More than that, we have reason tonight to be very grateful for the measure of health which we enjoy. “It is indeed a strange and awful sensation, to be suddenly reduced by the unnerving hand of sickness to the feebleness of infancy; for giant strength to lie prostrate, and busy activity to be chained to the weary bed.” Oh! when the bones begin to ache, and sinews and tissues seem to be only roads for pain to travel on, then we thank God for even a moment’s rest. Do you not know what it is to toss to and fro in the night and wish for the day, and when the daylight has come to pine for the night? If there has been an interval of relief, just a little lull in the torture and the pain, how grateful you have been for it! Shall we not be thankful for health then, and especially so for a long continuance of it? You strong men who hardly know what sickness means, if you could be made to walk the wards of the hospital, and see where there have been broken bones, where there are disorders that depress the system, incurable maladies, pangs that rack and convulse the body, and pains all but unbearable, you would think, I hope, that you had cause enough for gratitude. Not far off from here there stands a dome — I thank God for the existence of the place of which it forms a part — but I can never look at it, I hope I never shall, without lifting up my heart in thanks to God that my reason is spared. It is no small unhappiness to be bereft of our faculties, to have the mind swept to and fro in hurricanes of desperate, raging madness, or to be victims of hallucinations that exclude you from all usefulness, and even companionship with your fellow men. That you are not in St. Luke’s or Bedlam tonight, should be a cause for thankfulness to Almighty God. But why do I enlarge here? Consider what pains the human body may be subjected to; imagine what ills may come upon humanity; conceive what distress, what woe, what anguish, we are all capable of bearing, and then in proportion as you have been secured from all these, and in proportion on the other hand as you have been blessed with comforts and enjoyments, “let each generous impulse of your nature warm into ecstasy,” and ask yourselves the question, “What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits towards us?” Tally up the sum, and then draw a line, and ask what is due to God for even these common blessings of providence?

5. But, my brothers and sisters in Christ, you who have something better than this life to rest upon, I touch a higher and a sweeter string, a chord which ought to tremble with a nobler melody, when I say to you — think of the spiritual blessings which you have received. It is not very long ago that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Some of us only look back for a little while and we were under the bondage of the law. We had been awakened, and we felt the load and the guilt of sin: a grievous burden, from which we feared we never could escape; a flagrant defilement from which we knew no means of cleansing. How well I remember my fruitless prayers my tears that were my food both day and night; my grief of heart, that cut me to the quick, but from which I found no kind of deliverance! How I sought the Lord then! How I cried for mercy, but I found none! I was confined and could not get out; delivered up to fear, and doubt, and despair. Bless the Lord, it is over now. Blessed be the name of God, the soul has escaped like a bird out of the net, and tonight, instead of speaking of sin as an unpardonable thing I can stand here and say for you as well as myself, that he has put away all our iniquity, and cast our transgressions into the depths of the sea. If he had never done anything for us except that, it seems to me that we should be bound for ever and for ever to extol his name with as much exultation as Miriam and Moses felt, when Miriam took the tambourine, and Moses wrote the song, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation.”

6. Not indeed, beloved, that forgiven sin was the total; it was only an item, the beginning of his tender mercies towards us, for after that he comforted us like a mother comforts her children. He bound up every wound; he removed every blot; he covered us with a robe of righteousness, and decked us with the jewels of the Spirit’s graces. He adopted us into his family, even us who were aliens by nature, foes by long habit, rebels and traitors by our revolt against his government; he made us heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. All the privileges of sonship, which never would have been ours by nature, have been secured for us by regeneration, and by adoption. All his benefits! If these were all, oh, what should we render to him who is the author and giver of such inestimable blessings? All his benefits! How could we estimate their value, even if we had to stop here? for notice that they are benefits indeed, not merely the kind intent of benevolence, or good wishes, which may or may not be of real service to us; but truly the saving effect of beneficence, or good deeds accomplished for us, the full advantage of which we have, to enjoy richly. There is a vexatious uncertainty about all human philanthropy. How weak it often is, expending strength for nothing, and failing to accomplish its best projects! What, though the physician should exhaust the resources of medical science while he spares no pains in watching his patient? that patient may die. What, though the advocate pleads for his client with intense fervour, cogent reasoning, and a torrent of eloquence? that client may yet lose his case. What, though the general of an army commands the troops ever so skilfully, and fights against the enemy ever so bravely? the battle may yet be lost. The heroic volunteer who attempts to rescue a drowning man may fail in the endeavour, and lose his own life in the process. The valiant crew that man the lifeboat may not succeed in bringing the shipwrecked to shore. The best of plans may miscarry. Kindness, like ore of gold in the heart of the creature, may never be minted into the coin of benefit, or pass current for its real worth. Not all donations expended in charity are effective to relieve distress. But the benefits of God are all fully beneficial. They accomplish the purposes for which they are intended. Forgetfulness on the part of God’s children is without excuse, for here we are, monuments of mercy, pillars of grace, living epistles; indeed, the living, the living to praise you, oh God, as I do today; and thus beholden to the Lord for all his benefits, I feel that my thoughts and actions of adoring gratitude should break forth, restrained by no shore, but be continually overflowing every embankment that custom has thrown up, and send out in tears of love and sweat of labour, fertilising streams on the right hand and on the left.

7. All his benefits! Ring that note again. His benefits are so many, so various, so minute, that they often escape our observation while they exactly meet our needs. It is true that the Lord has done great things for us which may well challenge the admiration of angels; but it is also true that he has done the little things for us, and bestowed attention upon all our tiny needs and our childish cares and anxieties. As we turn over the pages of our diary, we are lost in wonder at the keenness of that vision and the extent of that knowledge, by which even the hairs of our head are all numbered. Oh God, what infinite tenderness, what boundless compassion, have you shown to us! You have continued to forgive our offences: you have perpetually upheld us in the hour of temptation. What comforts have delighted our soul in the times of trouble! What gentle admonitions have brought us back in the times of our going astray! We have had preserving mercies, sustaining mercies, enriching mercies, sanctifying mercies. Who shall count the small dust of the favours and bounties of the Lord? My dear brethren, it is no small benefit that God has conferred upon some of us that we are members of a happy church on earth, that we are united together in the bonds of love. I know some of you used to be members of other churches where there were periodic conflicts, and you are glad enough that you have come with a loving and happy people where you can serve the Lord to your heart’s content, and have fellowship with warm hearted fellow Christians who will greet you in the name of the Lord. My heart exults in the thought of all the prosperity we have enjoyed in this place. May the Lord’s name be praised. Even as a church, over and above the mercies which have come to us as private Christians, I would say, and I would invite you to join me in saying, “What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits towards us?”

8. But, beloved, we have only begun the list of those mercies that we strive in vain to enumerate, we shall not attempt to finish it, for blessed be God it never will be finished. He has given us himself to be our portion; he has given us his providence to be our guardian; he has given us his promise to be the deed for our inheritance. We shall not die, although we must sleep, unless the Lord comes first. Yet we shall sleep in Jesus. Our bones and ashes shall be watched over and preserved until the trumpet of the resurrection shall summon them by its sound, and our bodies shall be reanimated by divine power; for our souls, we have the sure and certain hope that we shall be with Christ where he is, so that we may behold his glory. We are looking forward to the blessed day when he shall say to us, “Come up higher,” and from the lower room of the feast we shall ascend into the upper room, nearer to the King, to sit at his right hand and feast for ever. Oh, the depths of his mercy! Oh, the heights of his lovingkindness! Faithfulness has followed us, not a promise has been broken, not one good thing has failed us.

9. Now, my dear brothers and sisters, I have just given you a sort of general outline of the mercies the Lord has bestowed on us, and the benefits we have received at his hand. If each one would try to fill that outline in, by the rehearsal of his own case, and the life story of his own experience, how much glory God might have from this assembly tonight. Your case is different from mine in the incidents that compose it; I believe mine is different from any of yours, but this I know, there is not a man in this place who owes more to God than I do, there is not one here who ought to be more grateful; there cannot be one who is more indebted to the goodness of the Lord than I am for every step of the pilgrimage that I have trodden, from the first day even until now. I can, indeed, I must, speak well of his name. Truly God is good, and I have found him so. “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” I have proven him to be so. Well, but I know all your tongues are itching to say the same. You feel that although he has led you through deep waters, and through fiery trials, and sometimes chastened you very severely, he has not given you over to death, but he has dealt with you as a father with his son whom he loves, and been to you as a friend who never forsakes. You would not breathe half a word against his blessed name. Rather you would say, to borrow an expression which Rutherford constantly used, that you are “drowned debtors to God’s mercy.” He meant that he was head over heals in debt to God: he could not tell how deep his obligations were, so he just called himself “a drowned debtor” to the lovingkindness and the mercy of his God. Well, there is a sum for you. If you want to use your arithmetical faculties, sit down when you can have an hour’s quiet, and try to enumerate all the precious thoughts of God towards you — all his benefits.

10. II. Our second point shall be A CALCULATION OF THE GRATITUDE WHICH IS DUE TO GOD FOR ALL THIS.

11. I should like to make each man his own assessor tonight, to assess the income of mercy which he has received, and write down what should be the tribute of gratitude which he should return to the revenue of the great King. “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits?” Calculate for a minute what we owe to God the Father, and what we ought to render to him for the debt. As many as have believed in Christ, were chosen by God the Father from before all worlds. He might have left them unchosen. It was his own absolute good pleasure which wrote them in the roll of the elect. He has chosen you, my brother; and you, my sister, that you should be holy, that you should be his child, that you should be made like your elder brother, Christ Jesus; and because he chose you to this, to this you shall come, although all the powers of earth and hell should oppose, for the divine decree remains immutably steadfast, and shall surely be fulfilled. You are God’s favourite one, his child, ordained to live for ever in eternal bliss. What shall we render for this? Oh let the thought just stir the depths of your soul for a minute, if indeed it is so, that the seal of the covenant has been set upon you. Before the sun began to shine, or the moon to march in her courses, God chose me, in whom there was nothing to engross his love — nothing to attract his favour. Oh my God, if it is so, that I, of all the sons of Adam, should be made a distinguishing object of your grace, and the subject of your discriminating favour, take me, take my body, take my soul, take my spirit, take my goods, my talents, my faculties; take all I have, and all I am, and all I ever hope to be, for I am yours. You have loosened my bonds, but your mercy has bound me to your service for ever.

12. Now think for a minute of what you owe to God the Son, to Jesus Christ. I mean as many of you as have believed in him. Think for a moment on the habitation of the highest glory, and consider how Jesus left his Father’s throne, deserted the courts of angels, and came down below to robe himself in an infant’s clay. There contemplate him tabernacling in our nature; see him after he has grown up, leading a life of toil and pain, bearing our sicknesses, and carrying our sorrows. Let your eye look straight into the face of the man who was acquainted with grief. I shall not ask you to trace all his footsteps, but I would ask you to come to that famous garden, where in the dead of the night he knelt and prayed, until in agony he sweat drops of blood. It was for you, for you, believer, that there the drops of bloody sweat fell to the ground. You see him rise up. He is betrayed by his friend. For you the betrayal was endured. He is taken. He is led off to Pilate. They falsely accuse him; they spit in his face; they crown him with thorns; they put a mock sceptre of reed into his hands. For you that ignominy was endured; for you especially and particularly the Lord of Glory passed through these cruel mockings. See him as he bears his cross, his shoulder is bleeding from the recent lash. See him, as along the Via Dolorosa be sustains the cruel load. He bears that cross for you. Your sins are laid on his shoulders, and made that cross more heavy than if it had been made of iron. See him on the cross, lifted up between heaven and earth, a spectacle of grievous woe. Hear him cry, “I thirst!” and hear his cry more bitter still, while heaven and earth are startled by it, “Why have you forsaken me, my God, my God?” He is enduring all those griefs for you. For you the thirst and the fainting, the nakedness and the agony. For you the bowing of the head, the yielding up the ghost, the slumber in the cold and silent tomb. For you his resurrection when he rises in the glory of his might, and for you afterwards the ascension into heaven, when they sing, “Lift up your heads, oh gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors.” For you his constant pleading at the right hand of the Father. Yes, all for you, and what should be done for him? What tribute shall we lay at the pierced feet? What present shall we put into that nailed hand? Where are kisses that shall be sweet enough for his dear wounds? Where is adoration that shall be reverent enough for his blessed and exalted person? Daughters of music, bring your sweetest songs. You men of wealth, bring him your treasures. You men of fame and learning, come lay your laurels at his feet. Let us all bring all that we have, for such a Christ as this deserves more than all. What shall we render, Christ of God, to you for all your benefits towards us?

13. Let me ask you to think for a moment on the third Person of the blessed Godhead, namely, the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget that when we were like filthy rags his hand touched us. When we were like corrupt and rotten carcasses in the graves of sin, his breath quickened us. It was his hand that led us to the cross. It was his finger that took the film from the eye. It was his eyesalve that illuminated us so that we should look to Jesus and live. Since that hour the blessed Spirit has lived in our heart. Oh, what a dreadful place, I was about to say, for God to dwell in! But the Holy Spirit has never utterly left us. We have grieved him; we have often vexed him; but still he is here, still resident within the soul, never departing, being himself the very life of the living incorruptible seed that remains for ever. My dear friends, how often the Holy Spirit has comforted you! How very frequently in your calm moments has he revealed Christ to you! How often has the blessed truth been driven home to you with a divine savour which it never could have had, if it had not been for him! He is God, and the angels worship him, and yet he has come into the closest possible contact with you. Christ was incarnate, and the flesh in which he was incarnate was pure and perfect. The Holy Spirit was not incarnate, but still he comes to dwell in the bodies of his saints, bodies still impure, still unholy. Oh, what grace and condescension is this! You blessed Dove, you dear Comforter, you kind Lover of the fallen sons of men, your condescension is matchless! We love you even as we love Christ himself, and tonight if we ask the question, “What shall we render to the Lord the Holy Spirit for all his benefits towards us?” we do not know how to answer, but can only say, “Take us, take us, Holy Spirit; use us; fill us with yourself; sanctify us for your holiest purposes; use us right up; make us living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, for it is our reasonable service.”

14. Now, perhaps, by God’s Spirit, the text may come a little more vividly before your minds. You have had another opportunity of adding up all the benefits of God: another opportunity, dear brother or sister, of calculating what you ought to do.

15. Give heed, then, for I intend to come, in closing, to be very personal and practical. I wish to speak very pointedly to you as individuals, but there are so many of you, that some are sure to slip away in the crowd. I half wish I were in the position of the preacher who had only one hearer, and addressed him as “Dearly beloved Roger.” I want to ask the question of my text as though only one person were here, and that one person was yourself. “What shall I render to the Lord?” Never mind your neighbour, your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife, or anyone else just now. If you are a saved soul, the question for you is, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me?” “What shall I render?” Suppose, dear friend, you had been the woman bowed with an infirmity for so many years, and Christ had healed you, and you had stood upright tonight; what would you render? Well, you have been released from your infirmity, a much worse decrepitude than the physical ailment she was released from. Suppose you had been poor blind Bartimaeus sitting by the wayside begging, born blind, and you had your sight given to you tonight; what would you render? But you have had such a gift bestowed on you. You were in spiritual blindness, worse than what is only natural, and Christ has opened your eyes; what will you render? Suppose you had been Lazarus, and had been in the grave so long that you began to be corrupt, and Christ had raised you to life, what would you render? Well, you have been quickened when you were dead in sin. You were corrupt; you were buried in darkness and in sin; but you can say with the psalmist, “Oh Lord, you have brought up my soul from the grave.” Now, what will you render to him? Suppose he stood on this platform tonight, and instead of this poor voice, and these unclean lips, the voice of the Well Beloved should speak in music to you, and the lips that are like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh could talk to each of you; what would you render to him then? Well, do the same as though he were here, for he sees you, indeed, and indeed his Spirit hovering over this assembly will accept the tribute you give as though he were here in the flesh, or otherwise he will grieve over you and resent the neglect of your heart. Think of him as being here, and render to him as though he were visibly and audibly in our midst.

16. What will you render? Let me ask you, dearly beloved, whether you have ever thought of what men and women can render? You may have read the lives, I hope you have, of Mr. and Mrs. Judson in Burma, ready to sacrifice all for Christ; or the lives of our martyrs, in Foxe’s Martyrology, who rejoiced if they might burn for Christ. We still have some men and women among us — I wish there were more — whose lives of consecration tell you what men can be and do. Are you anything like them? If not, while they are not what they ought to be, and they fall short of the Master’s image, how far short must you be? Oh! I pray that you would be grieved that it is so, and press the question upon yourselves all the more, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me?”

17. A side question may help you. What have you rendered? You are getting old now, or at least you are getting to the prime of life; what have you done for Christ up to this time? Come, look; look back now, I must urge you to do it. Recently converted perhaps, or if converted young, it does not matter, still the question must come — “What have you done so far?” Oh! I dare not answer the question myself — yet I am not in that respect the worst here — I dare not look back upon my past life of service for God with anything like satisfaction. After having done all that we could do, we are only unprofitable servants; we have not done what was our duty. There is no man here, I fear, who can answer the question, “What have I rendered?” with any self-contentment. We must all drop a tear, feel abashed, and say, “Good Lord, do not let the future be as barren as the past, but by your mercy help us to a better and a nobler kind of living!”

18. May I ask you, since it may assist in answering the question, how old are you? Some of you tell me that you are far advanced in age; then what must you render in the few years you can have to live? Live hard, beloved, live hard; live fast in a spiritual sense, for you have little time to use, none to waste. Get as much done as can be done for your dear Lord, before he calls you to his face. You are young, others of you tell me. Oh! then with such a long opportunity as God may give you, you ought to be diligent every moment. If you are not diligent now in your early days, there is no likelihood that you will be afterwards. Since you have the special and particular advantage of early piety, oh render to the Lord all the more, because he has opened before you a wider field, and given you more time to cultivate it than very many of his people have known.

19. Let me ask you, again, what are your capabilities? That, perhaps, will help you to answer the question. “Oh,” one says, “I cannot do much.” Well then, my dear friend, do the little you can, do it all; do it up to the very point, do not leave an inch untouched. If you can only do a little, do all of that, and do it heartily; and keep at it until you die. Another says, “Perhaps God has entrusted some talents to me.” Then he expects a great deal from the employment of them. Oh do not let your talents lie idle! Your talents are not meant for your gain, nor merely to serve the world; they are meant to serve your God with, who has redeemed you with the precious blood of Jesus. Take care, whether you have much or little, to give him all.

20. I will ask another question of you that may stir your mettle. How did you serve Satan before you were converted? What rare boys some of you were; not sparing body or soul to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Oh, with what zest, with what fervour and force, and vehemence, did many of you dance to the tune of the devil’s music! I wish you would serve God half as well as some of the devil’s servants serve him. What, now you have a new friend, a new lover, a new husband, shall he ever look you in the face and say, “You do not love me as well as the old lover; you do not serve me so zealously?” Shall Jesus Christ say to any man or woman among us, “You do not love me as well as you did love the world; you were never weary of serving the world, but you soon get weary of serving me?” Oh my poor heart, wake up! wake up! What are you doing, to have served sin at such a rate, and then to serve Christ so little?

21. Another question may be to the point. How do you serve yourselves? Some of you are in business, and I like to see a man of business with his hands full and his wits about him. Your drones, those indolent follows who go about the shop half asleep, and seem as if they never did wake up, what is the use of them? men who seem to encumber the earth, men who never did see a snail unless they happened to meet one, for they could not have overtaken it, they travel so slowly, such men are of little use to God or man. I know that most of you are diligent in business. You never hear the ring of a guinea without being on the alert to earn it if possible. Your coats are off, and very likely your shirt sleeves are turned up when there is a chance of doing business. That I commend, but oh, do let us have something like it in the service of Jesus Christ. Do not let us be drudging in the world, and drawling in the church; lively in the service of mammon, and then laggard in the service of Christ. Heart and soul, manliness, vigour, vehemence, let the utmost strain of all our powers be exerted in the service of him who was never supine or dilatory in the service of our souls when they had to be redeemed.

22. I shall not keep you much longer, but still pressing the same question, let me ask you, dear friends, how do you think such service as you have rendered will look when you come to see it by the light of eternity? Oh, nothing of life will be worth having lived, when we come to die, except that part of it which was devoted and consecrated to Christ. Live, then, with your deathbeds in immediate prospect. Live in the light of the next world, so your pulse will be quickened, and your heart excited in the Master’s service.

23. I now ask the question, What shall we render? What shall I render to the Lord. Let the question go all around the pews, and let everyone answer, “What shall I render? Is there anything I can do now for Christ that I never did before? Can I not speak a word for Christ to someone tonight?” Tonight, because you cannot afford the loss of a single opportunity. Tomorrow’s mercies will bring tomorrow’s obligations; today’s obligations must be discharged today. What shall I render tonight? Is there anyone I can speak to about Jesus before I retire to my room? It is a little thing, but let me do it. What shall I render? Let me give my God praise tonight somehow. There is the communion table around which we are about to gather; that may help me to render him some homage; I will there take the cup of salvation, and call upon his name. Tomorrow I shall be in the world going out to my usual labours. What shall I render? I will consecrate part of my substance to God, but I will try to consecrate all tomorrow and the next day to him. While I am at my work, if I push a plane, or use a hammer, or if I stand at a counter, or in the fields, or in the streets, I will ask that my thoughts may be up to God, that I may be kept from sin, and that by my example I may render some tribute of honour to his name in the sight of my fellow men, and I will try to seize every opportunity that comes in my way of telling

      To sinners round,
   What a dear Saviour I have found.

24. And yet, dear friends, it is not for me to answer the question that is propounded for you. With these few brief hints, I do frame the question in all its touching pathos, in all its deep solemnity, in all its momentous gravity, before every Christian man and woman here, and I summon you to answer it before the searcher of all hearts, “What shall I render?” Thrice happy are you who respond in lip and life to the urgent call! “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which you have showed towards his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end so that you are not slothful, but followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

25. As for those of you, my hearers, who are not yet converted, you who are not saved, this is not a question for you. Your question is, “What must I do to be saved?” and the answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Oh believe on him tonight! Trust him — that is the point; trust Jesus Christ. You may come to him and be saved at once. Then, not until then, you will begin to serve him.

26. May God bless you, my dear friends, every one of you, for Christ’s sake.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Psalms 116]