gifts for the rebellious.' Rebellious, thought I, why surely they are such as once were under subjection to their Prince, even those who, after they had sworn subjection to his government, have taken up arms against him; and this, thought I, is my very condition. Once I loved him, feared him, served him; but now I am a rebel, and I have sold him. I said, let him go if he will, but yet he has gifts for rebels; and then why not for me?"

Oh, that I could cause every despairing heart to reason in this way! Oh, that the Holy Spirit would put this argument into every troubled mind at this moment: "And then why not for me?" Come home, dear brother, come home, for there are gifts for the rebellious; and why not for you? I know you deserted the Lord's Table, but the Lord of the Table has not deserted you. I know you have, as far as you could, forsworn the name of Christ, and even wished you could be unbaptized: but that could not be, nor can the Lord leave you to perish. I know you have done evil with both hands eagerly; and perhaps now you are living in a known sin, and when you go home to-day you will see it before your eyes. Nevertheless, I charge you, return unto the Lord at once. Come to your Lord and Saviour, who still prays, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Behold how in his glory he "hath received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also." O my soul, I charge thee, on thine own account, hang on to this most precious declaration, for thou, too, hast been a rebel. Would God that all my brothers and sisters would be cheered by this dear word, and take it home to themselves with a believing repentance and a holy hatred of sin! I would print the words in stars across the brow of night. "Yea, for the rebellious also."

V. I have done when I have handled the fifth point, which is this: OUR LORD'S TRIUMPHANT ASCENSION SECURES THE CONSUMMATION OF HIS WHOLE WORK. What doth it say? "That the Lord God might dwell among them." When our Lord Christ came here at the first he was willing enough to "dwell" among us; but it could not be. "The word was made flesh and tabernacled among us," like a Bedouin in his tent, but not as a dweller at home. He could not "dwell" here on that occasion. He was but a visitor, and badly treated at that. "There was no room for him in the inn," where everybody else was freely welcome. "He came unto his own". surely they will lodge him, "but his own received him not." There was no room for him in the temple-there he had to use the scourge. There was no room for him in the open streets, for they took up stones to stone him. Out of the synagogue they hurried him, to cast him down headlong from the brow of the hill. "Away with him! Away with him!" was the cry of the ribald crowd. This dear visitor, who came here all unarmed, without sword or bow, they treated as though he had been a spy or an assassin, who had stolen among them to do them ill. And so they ran upon him with a spear, and he, quitting these inhospitable realms which knew him not, took home with him the marks of man's discourtesy. O earth, earth, how couldst thou drive away thy dearest friend, and compel him to be as a wayfaring man, that tarrieth but for a night; nay, worse, as a man astonied, who meets with wounding in the house of his friends?

After he had risen again, he went home, that from this throne he might direct a work by which earth should become a place where God could abide. Again is the temple of God to be with men, and he shall dwell among them. This world of ours has been sprinkled with the precious blood of the Lamb of God, and it is no longer as an unclean thing. Jesus is the Lamb of God who so taketh away the sin of the world that God can treat with men on terms of grace, and publish free salvation. The Lord God himself had long been a stranger in the land. Did not the holy man of old say, "I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were"? But Jesus, the ascended One, is pouring down such gifts upon this sinsmitten world, that it will yet become a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness and the God of righteousness.

This promise is partly fulfilled before your own eyes this day; for the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, and he has never returned. Jesus said, "He shall abide with you for ever." The Holy Dove has often been greatly grieved, but he has never spread his wings to depart. This is still the dispensation of the Spirit. You hardly need to pray to have the Spirit poured out; for that has been done. What you need is, a baptism of the Holy Spirit; namely, to go down personally into that glorious flood which has been poured forth. Oh, to be immersed into the Holy Ghost, and into fire: covered with his holy influence, "plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea, and lost in his immensity!" Here is our life and power, for thus the Lord God doth dwell among us. Ever since the ascension the Holy Ghost has remained among men, though he has not been, at all seasons, equally active. All through the night of Romanism, and the schoolmen, he still tarried: there were humble hearts which rejoiced to be his temples even in those doleful days. To-day he is still with his regenerated ones. In spite of impudent strivings against the divine inspiration of his Holy Scripture, and, notwithstanding the follies of ecclesiastical amusements, he is with his chosen. Lord, what is man that thy Spirit should dwell with him? But so it is; and this is why our Lord went up to Heaven and received divine gifts that by him the Lord God might dwell among us.

from you

But there cometh a day when this shall be carried out to the letter. Methinks I hear the angels say, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Now, "in like manner "must mean in Person. In Person our Lord was taken up into heaven, and in Person he will come again; and when he cometh, the Lord God will, indeed, dwell among us. Oh, that the day would come! We wait and watch for his glorious appearing; for then will he dwell among men in a perfect fashion. What happy days shall we have when Jesus is here! What a millennium his presence will bring; there can be no such auspicious era without it, any more than there can be summer without the sun. must come first, and then will the golden age begin. The central glory of that period shall be that the Lord is here. "The Lord God shall dwell among them." Then shall be heard the song which will never end, earth's homage to the Lord, who renewed the heavens and

He

the earth, and has taken up his dwelling in them. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them." Up till now this work has been going on; but as yet it is incomplete. "Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile," is still most sadly true. The rankness of sin destroys the sweet odours of this world, so that the pure and holy God cannot abide in it; but since the Lord Jesus hath sweetened it with his sacred merits, and the Spirit is purifying it by his residence in men, the Lord smelleth a savour of rest, and he will not give up this poor fallen planet. Even now his angels come and go in heavenly traffic with the chosen. Soon the little boat of this globe shall be drawn nearer to the great ship, and earth shall lie alongside heaven. Then shall men praise God day and night in his temple. Heaven shall find her choristers among the ransomed from among men. The whole world shall be as a censer filled with incense for the Lord of hosts. All this will be because of those gifts received and bestowed by our Lord Jesus in the day when he returned to his glory, leading captivity captive. O Lord, hasten thy coming! We are sure that thine abiding presence and glorious reign will come in due season. Thy coming down secured thy going up: thy going up secures thy coming down again. Wherefore, we bless and magnify thee, O ascended Lord, with all our hearts, and rise after thee as thou dost draw us upward from grovelling things. So be it! Amen.

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Psalm lxviii. ; Ephesians iv. 1-13.

HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "-322, 317, 449.

"THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL." Edited by C. H. SPURGEON. CONTENTS FOR MAY, 1890.

Thoughts about Church Matters. By C. H. Mossback Correspondence. No. 1.

Spurgeon.

Dry Sundays.

"Never heard about Him in Auntie's Church." "Arnold Edwards" in a Thieves' Kitchen. Nettleton Anecdotes. Fourth Selection.

The Evil of Little Faith.

"Not Cast Out."

Telegraph Sentences.

"There was Tinder in that Box."
The Work of the Rescue Society.

"One Thing is Needful."

Notices of Books.

Notes.

Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Pastors' College Missionary Association.
Stockwell Orphanage.

Drives at Menton. No. 1.-To Monti. By C. H. Colportage Association.

Spurgeon.

Another Missionary Classic.

Society of Evangelists.

For General Use in the Lord's Work.

Price 3d. Post free, 4 stamps.

PASSMORE & ALABASTER, Paternoster Buildings; and all Booksellers.

THE SHINING OF THE FACE OF MOSES.

A Sermon

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 18TH, 1890,

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,

On Lord's-day Morning, May 4th, 1890.

"And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them. And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him."-Exodus xxxiv. 29–35.

A FAST of forty days does not improve the appearance of a man's countenance: he looks starved, wrinkled, old, haggard. Moses had fasted forty days twice at the least; and according to many competent authorities the tenth chapter of Deuteronomy seems to imply that he fasted forty days three times in quick succession. I will not assert or deny the third forty days; but it is certain that, with a very slight interval, Moses fasted forty days, and then forty days more; and it is probable that to these must be added a third forty. Small attractiveness would naturally remain in a face which had endured so stern an ordeal; but the Lord whom he served made his face brilliant with an unusual lustre. The glory of the light of God upon his countenance may have been the reason why he remained so hale in after years of old age. This man of eighty spent forty years more in guiding Israel, and in the end his eye had not dimmed, nor his natural force abated. He that could fast forty days would be a hard morsel for death. Those eyes which had looked upon the glory of God were not likely to wax dim amid earthly scenes; and that natural force which had endured the vision of the supernatural could well support the fatigues of the wilderness. God so sustained his servant, that his long and repeated fasting, during which he did not even drink water, did no harm to his physical constitution. The abstinence even from water Nos. 2,143-4.

renders the fast the more remarkable, and lifts it out of similarity to modern feats of fasting.

Moses did not know, at the time, that his face was shining; but he did know it afterwards, and he has here recorded it. He gives in detail the fact of the brightness of his own face, and how others were struck with it, and what he had to do in order to associate with them. We are sure that this record was not made by reason of vanity, for Moses writes about himself in great lowliness of spirit: it was written under divine direction, with a worthy object. The man Moses was very meek, and his meekness entered into his authorship, as into all the other acts of his life: we are therefore sure that this record is for our profit. I am afraid, brethren, that God could not afford to make our faces shine: we should grow too proud. It needs a very meek and lowly spirit to bear the shinings of God. We only read of two men whose faces shone, and both were very meek. The one is Moses, in the Old Testament; the other is Stephen, in the New, whose last words proved his meekness: for, when the Jews were stoning him, he prayed, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Gentleness of nature and lowliness of mind are a fine background on which God may lay the brightness of his glory. Where these things abound, it may be safe for the Lord, not only to put his beauty upon a man, but also to make a record of the fact. Moses wrote this record with a reluctant pen. Since he did not write it out of vanity, let us not read it out of curiosity. He wrote it for our learning: let us learn by it; and may God the Holy Spirit cause our faces to shine to-day, as we read of the shining face of Moses!

It would appear, so far as we can make out the narrative, that his face continued to shine long afterward. After Moses had come down from the mount the brightness began to diminish. Paul tells us that it was a "glory to be done away"; but when he went into the holy place to commune with God the brightness was revived, and he came out again and spoke to the people with that same glowing heaven upon his brow. When he addressed the people in the name of God, he took off the vail, and let them see the brightness of God in his ambassador; but as soon as he had done speaking, and fell back into his own private character, he drew a vail over his face, that none might be kept at a distance thereby. The man Moses was as meek with the glory on his countenance as before it gathered there. God put great honour upon him, but he did not desire to make a display of that honour, nor childishly wish that it should be seen of men. For the people's sakes and for typical purposes, he veiled his face while in ordinary conversation with the people, and only unveiled it when he spoke in the name of the Lord. Brethren, if God honours you as preachers or teachers, accept the honour, but do not attribute it to your own worthiness, or even to your own personality; but ascribe it to the office to which the Lord has called you. "I magnify mine office," said Paul; but you never find Paul magnifying himself. He wears the glory as an ambassador of God, not as a private individual. The dignity that God gives to his servants is bestowed upon their office, not upon themselves apart from it. They must never run away with it into daily life, and think that they themselves are