#THE AMEN
"The Amen."
- Revelation 3:14
THE word "Amen" is much fuller of meaning than may be supposed, and as a title of our Lord Jesus Christ it is eminently suggestive. As you know the word is a Hebrew one which has been very properly conveyed not only into our language, but into most, if not all the languages of Christendom. It is a happy circumstance that some of these words should have had vitality enough in them to be transplanted into other tongues, and still flourish; it gives some faint foreshadowing of the united worship of celestial spirits, and it indicates the Lord’s will that the Hebrew race shall not be forgotten by His Church, and that the language of His well-beloved Israel stills sounds sweetly in His ear. AMEN signifies, true, faithful, certain, but its sense will be better seen by carefully noting its uses. It had at least three forms of practical meaning. First, it was used in the sense of asserting; when a person would give peculiar authority to his words, he either commenced or concluded with the word Amen; and thus declared as with the solemn "yes, yes," of an honest, truth-loving man, certainly, assuredly, so it is. Our Savior uses the term frequently. The word which we translate "Verily, verily," is this word "Amen." You must have observed that John who has a quick eye for the divine moods of the Lord Jesus notes with unerring fidelity the repetition of the asserting word. Whenever our blessed Lord was about to say something peculiarly solemn into which He would throw the full weight of His authority, He asserted it by the doubling of the word "Amen, amen," or "Verily, verily," at the commencement of it. The second sense of the word Amen slightly varies from asserting, and may be more properly described as consenting. There is a memorable instance of this in the case of the woman who drank the water of jealousy (Numbers 5:22). When she drank the water of jealousy, it was enacted that if she had been guilty of the crime laid to her door, certain terrible results should follow as the effect of this water; she, at the time she drank it, said "Amen, amen," that is, she gave her consent that such-and-such pangs should fall upon her if she had been really guilty of adultery.
A more memorable instance still is that of the people assembled upon Mount Ebal and Gerizim; when the threats and the blessings were both read in their hearing, the people said "Amen, amen." So let it be. Of the like character is the case in the Book of Nehemiah; when Ezra blessed Jehovah, the great God, all the people answered, Amen, with lifting up of their hands. A third meaning of the word Amen is what we may call petitionary. In this sense we use it at the close of our prayers. "Our Father who are in heaven" is not a complete model of public prayer till it concludes with "Amen." In the ancient Church it was customary for the entire congregation to say Amen. Paul alludes to this custom in that expression in the Corinthians where he speaks of persons praying in an unknown tongue; he says, "How should he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at your giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what you say?" We have it put on record by Jerome, that at Rome the people were accustomed to say Amen in the gatherings of the early Christians so heartily, I might add, so lustily, that it was like the dash of a cataract, or a clap of thunder. I could wish that we more uniformly and universally said Amen at the close of public prayer; I am sure it would be Scriptural and apostolic, and I believe it would be useful to you all. Perhaps the custom was dropped on account of the irregular way in which the brethren said Amen. I have heard the same irregularity in certain rustic Methodist congregations, when I have thought that the Amen was put in the wrong place, and could have wished the custom to be discontinued altogether, because certain illiterate, rash, but zealous brethren said Amen when there was nothing to say Amen to, and so they created ridicule rather than reverence, and showed as much folly as fervor. However, a judicious revival of the custom would, I doubt not, be useful in the Church of God. It then signifies, "So be it, so let it be," and is virtually the consent of the entire congregation to the prayer which has been put up. Observe the devout Amen of Benaiah, at the close of David’s dying prayer, with the remarkable addition, "The Lord God of my lord the king say so too" (1 Kings 1:36). Notice also how the psalmist closes several of the psalms, such as the 41st and the 72nd with the emphatic conclusion, "Amen and Amen."—
"Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honors to our King;
Angels, descend with songs again,
And earth, repeat the long AMEN."
Should you desire still further to inquire into the use and meaning of this remarkable word, there is a valuable sermon upon it in the works of Abraham Booth which you may read, as I have done, to great advantage. If anything should lead to the revival of its use more generally in public worship, it will be a matter of great congratulation.
It strikes me that I might have divided my discourse this morning very fairly under these three heads—asserting, consenting, petitioning, for in each of these our adorable Lord Jesus Christ is certainly "the Amen." He asserts the will of God—He asserts God Himself. God the Son is constantly called the Logos, the Word; He who asserts, declares and testifies God. In the second place, we know that Jesus Christ consents to the will, design, and purpose of Jehovah. He gives an Amen to the will of God—is, in fact, the echo, in His life and in His death, of the eternal purposes of the Most High. And, thirdly, he is "the Amen" in the petitionary sense; for to all our prayers He gives whatever force and power they have. It is His Amen to our supplication which makes it prevalent at the throne of the Most High. In these three senses Christ may well be called "THE AMEN."
But we have preferred to divide the discourse another way. Our blessed and ever-to-be-adored Lord Jesus is, first, "the Amen" in reference to God; secondly, "the Amen" as viewed in Himself; and, thirdly, I trust some of us have distinctly trusted Him to be "The Amen" in regard to ourselves.
I.Refresh your memories upon the great truth of God, our LORD IS SUPERLATIVELY GOD’S AMEN.
Let us review the various points in which He is "the Amen" of God. We must speak, of course, of God after the manner of men; let that grain of salt be understood to savor all that we say. Jesus is "the Amen" of the divine purposes. There was a day before all days when there was no day but the Ancient of days—a time before all times when He who made all time dwelt alone. Then in His august mind He conceived the plan of redemption. He foresaw the world ruined by sin; He determined that a number whom no man could number should be redeemed unto Himself to be forever His children, the beloved of His soul. These purposes He made, and fixed them fast—there should be a people who should show forth His praise forever and ever. These purposes were but purposes until God said Amen to them, and made them valid and sure decrees by determining to give His own dear Son. If God had not resolved to give the Lord Jesus Christ to be a Redeemer, the purpose of redemption would have had no Amen. If He had not appointed Christ to be the head of the body, His purpose concerning the body would have lacked the Amen. The giving of our souls to Christ according to the Scriptures was a most ancient covenant transaction; and the gift of the Son to us was of equally ancient date, for He is regarded by God as the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. That gift of Christ to us in the everlasting covenant was the mighty Father’s virtually stamping His decree, and making it valid and good. Long before you and I had a being, before this great world was made by God out of nothingness, God had made every purpose of His eternal counsel to stand fast and firm by the gift of His dear Son to us. He was then God’s Amen to His eternal purpose.
When our Lord actually came upon the earth, He was then God’s Amen to the long line of prophecies. One by one the servants of God had testified concerning the coming Messiah. Some had spoken evangelically as Isaiah; others with a more legal savor as Moses; but their testimony was to the same effect, that in due time a prophet should be raised up, and that there should be born of a virgin a man who should at the same time be "The Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father." These promises followed thick and fast, all of them cohering, each one manifesting the same coming One; but there was no Amen to them, they were things hoped for, but not the substance thereof; till at last, in the silence of midnight, angels sweetly sang His advent, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men! For unto you is born this day in Bethlehem a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." That babe among the horned oxen, that carpenter’s son, was God’s declaration that prophecy was the voice of heaven. Now, you prophets, sleeping in your tombs, it is witnessed that you lied not. Now has God Himself come forth and set to His seal that you are true. In the blessed form of Mary’s child, God’s Amen appears both to shepherds and to wise men.
In the same sense, also, Christ was God’s Amen to all the Levitical types. The morning and the evening lamb, the red heifer, the turtle doves, and the two young pigeons whose blood stained the altar, the sacrificial bullock, the scapegoat, the plentiful sprinklings of blood—all these were man’s avowal that he believed in God, and at the same time God declaring to man that He had provided a sacrifice. Yonder smoking bullock offered by Aaron and his sons is nothing yet, it is but a figure, it lacks the Amen to give it body, force, substance. That uplifted knife, that priest clad in fair white linen, that blood spilt upon the altar—all these are nothing, they need a soul put into them. When Jesus Christ came, and especially when up to the cross as to the altar He went as a victim and was laid on it, then it was that God solemnly put an Amen into what otherwise was but typical and shadowy. "It is finished," said the Savior, and then was, as our poet puts it—
"Finished all the types and shadows
Of the ceremonial law!
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe:
It is finished!
Saints, from here your comfort draw."
"The Amen" is set to the purposes, to the prophecies, and to the types.
It is exceedingly worthy of your regard that Christ is God’s Amen to the Majesty of His law. That was a very solemn Amen which God gave on the top of Sinai, when He came with 10,000 of His holy ones, and the mountain smoked beneath His feet. As I hear those words, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength," that blast of the trumpet waxing exceedingly loud and long, that crack of thunder, and yon mighty flashes of great lighting were God’s Amen. AMEN rolled in peals along the wilderness of Kadesh, made the tents of Kedar tremble, and made the hinds to calve, and broke even the lofty cedars of Lebanon. It was such a terrible Amen that the people begged that they might hear it no more; their hearts were subdued with the terror of the dread appearances of God’s law though He revealed it in the hands of a mediator by angels. But, dear friends, I can point you to a more solemn Amen than that, more terrible than Sinai, although you can better bear the sight. God has said, "The soul that sins it shall die," "Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." There stands the Son of God. He has not sinned Himself, but He has the sins of all His people imputed to Him; He has never broken the law, but all our breaches were laid on Him. Now what will God say to Him? God meets Him as He once met Adam in the garden, but Jesus did not hide Himself as Adam did, He met stern Justice face to face. There He is, the sinner’s substitute; what will the Infinitely Just Jehovah say now?
The law says He is accursed, for He has sin upon Him; will the Father consent that His own Beloved shall be made a curse for us? Hearken and hear the Lord’s Amen. "Awake, O sword, against the man that is My fellow, said the Lord." What? Does God the Father say Amen? Can it be? It is even so! He says Amen. And what an awful Amen, too, when the streaming sweat of blood leapt from every pore of His most blessed and immaculate body, and fell in terrible clots upon the frosty ground. O God, You did say Amen indeed to all the terror of Your law when Christ had to cry, "I am exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Yet louder still is that Amen at Golgotha where stands the Savior, mocked, despised, rejected; at the Roman column, torn with scourges and in the seat of mockery crowned with thorns. There the law seemed to say, "The sinner is to be despised and rejected, the sinner is a shameful thing, worthy to be spit upon, the sinner deserves to be crowned with thorns." And God says, Amen, and His own dear Son, who stood in the sinner’s place, was made to set forth God’s awful assent to the demands of Justice. Yonder along the streets of Jerusalem, over stones as hard as the hearts of Jerusalem’s sons and daughters, harder they could not be, He leaves a trail of blood up to Calvary’s mound; and then His hands and feet are pierced, and His soul pierced with something worse than nails, and then His heart is made to drink of draughts more bitter than wormwood mixed with gall, and His soul the subject of worse temptations than the mere thrusting out of the tongue or the jeer and the jibe of the multitude; there where His soul died within Him because God forsook Him, He shrieked "Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabacthani?" There it was that God said sternly and dreadfully Amen to that sentence, "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Beloved, if you want to see to the fullest degree how God hates sin, and with what vengeance He pursues iniquity, you must see Him hunt that sin right into the shelter which it sought to find in His own dear Son! Though it never was His sin, but our sin laid upon Him, yet God spared not His own Son. You have only to see how He was smitten of God and afflicted, because the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed, and you will see at once that Jehovah does not reckon sin to be a trifle.
It must have been a very grand sight to stand in the valley between Ebal and Gerizim to hear the law read, and then to have heard the six tribes upon Gerizim all say to the blessings solemnly, Amen; like a peal of thunder it must have started from the ten thousand lips of the children of Israel. And then how dreadful, in what subdued awe-stricken tones, like the low murmur of a threatening tempest, must have sounded the dreadful Amen from Ebal, when all the threats were read. "Cursed is he who confirms not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say Amen." But mark this word, it was a far more solemn thing when God spoke than when the tribes spoke, and He did speak upon Calvary in tones, the thunder of which reverberate throughout all ages, and are heard in dreadful mutterings in the abyss of hell. Jehovah, whom cherubs sing as, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts," then said, "Amen, so let it be! Vengeance, take your fill! Justice, slay the victim! Let the innocent substitute bleed for men." Our Lord Jesus, so far from destroying the law, came to be God’s Amen to its penalty and to sanction and to establish it as the law of God forever.
We have not, however, exhausted this topic. Jesus Christ is, as you know, very blessedly God’s Amen to all His covenant promises, for is it not written that "all the promises of God in Him are yes and in Him Amen"? The apostle Paul seems to have hit upon the very spirit of Christ’s name, Amen, when he says, "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" When God gave His Son He did virtually give all covenant blessings to His people. The gift of Jesus Christ was God’s making every promise which had ever gone before the coming of Christ sure and certain. Christ was the wax melted in the fire upon which God set the stamp of His own honor that He would be true to the covenant engagements which He had made. Brothers and sisters, if the saying of Amen upon Mount Gerizim to the blessing of the law had something delightfully cheering and comfortable about it, how much more divinely sweet was Jehovah’s Amen when Jesus Christ rose from the dead triumphant, how much more when up the everlasting hills He rode in glorious triumph, leading captivity captive? Devout Spirits, come here and mark God’s Amen to the blessings of the covenant; see yonder the mighty throng of angels, and hear their song as they sing, "Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be you lift up, you everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in." Do you desire to hear God’s Amen? Hear it as He bids His Son, amidst universal acclamations, sit upon His throne and reign with Him, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. Oh, greatly blessed are you, you saints who are one with Jesus, for God has blessed Him, and therefore you! On high enthroned are you, O saints, for Christ enthroned stands! Him has God exalted, and He has exalted all His saints in Him. He joys not for Himself alone; the least Christian has a part in all the glories of the Savior. The enthronization of Christ is God’s solemn declaration and Amen that He will bless all His people, and make them kings and priests to reign forever and ever.
Once more, Jesus Christ will be God’s Amen at the conclusion of this dispensation in the fullness of time. I am not going into curious questions about how this dispensation will end. I have my own notions about it, other people have theirs. I believe, if some people were as private about theirs as I am about mine, they would not sell so many two penny books, nor make so many foolish guesses at the future. I know just this about that, that Jesus Christ will come in due time, and that when He comes, whether immediately, or after a millennial reign, two things will surely happen—the righteous will be rewarded, and the wicked will be condemned. These two things we can be quite sure of. Now, when God shall put into His dear Son’s mouth those words, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world," that will be a most solemn Amen to God’s purpose made concerning those saints. Indeed, it will be the Amen to the covenant in the whole of its range, and glorious pomp, to reign with Jesus Christ forever, death and hell, and the assembled world shall mark with shame and dismay God’s Amen to His own eternal purposes, and to the work of His glorified Son. When, turning to the left, the Judge shall say, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire in hell," before the word is spoken, the ungodly will recognize Christ as being "the Amen" to all that God had threatened; in their cries to the rocks to hide them, in their shrieks to the mountains to fall upon them, they will at once make clear to assembled multitudes that they perceive Jesus to be "the Amen," making God’s threats true—and when His voice shall have cursed them forever, it will be the weighty Amen throughout eternity, the emphatic reasserting at once of their guilt and of their punishment, that their sentence came from Jesus, that same Jesus who died for sinners and whom sinners crucified and rejected. Had it come from any other lips the sentence had not been so dreadful; but coming from the man as well as from the God, it shall be humanity assenting to God’s verdict, as well as God declaring and enforcing the sanctions of His law. Oh sinner! May Christ never be God’s Amen to you in that sense; but, on the contrary, may you hide in the wounds of Jesus, and find all the blessings in Him yes and in Him Amen to you!
I have thus spoken sufficiently upon this point if God blesses it to you; and so let us turn to our second head.
II.Our Redeemer took this as a personal title to Himself. He called Himself "the Amen," and so He is. Our second point, then, is THAT HE IS OUR AMEN IN HIMSELF. He proved Himself to be Amen; the God of truth, sincerity, and faithfulness in His fulfillment of covenant engagements. The Lord Jesus Christ undertook to bring many saints to glory. His Father gave Him a people to be His forever, and He undertook, in suretyship engagements, that every one of these should be delivered perfect and complete when they should be required at His hands. He undertook, in order to this, that He would suffer, bleed, and die for His Church; that all her debts should be discharged from His own veins; that a perfect righteousness should be worked out for her in which she should stand all beauteous in the sight of God. Brothers and sisters, I leave it to your own judgment, you who know the Lord Jesus, whether He has not faithfully kept His engagements. He has been "the Amen" to the full, in this respect. "Lo, I come! In the volume of the Book it is written of Me: I delight to do Your will, O God." From old eternity He declared Himself to be ready to go through the work, and when the time came, He was straitened till the work was done. When He was a servant in the house of His Father, He might have gone out free if He had pleased, He might have left the service had He willed, but He said, "I love My Master, and I love My Master’s children." And so, like a man who would not accept freedom under the old Jewish law, His ear was fastened to the doorpost of God’s house, and He became the servant of His people forever. "My ear have You opened." Beloved, He has fulfilled His service! Seven years of toil for Rachel were achieved by Jacob, and seven years afterwards, and our Master has achieved the same. He has paid the price of His Beloved to the uttermost farthing, and up till now it can be said of Him, "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." "Of all whom you have given Me I have lost none." Let us praise and bless His name as we see Him in covenant engagements faithful and true, "the Amen."
He was also "the Amen" in all His teachings. We have already remarked that He constantly commenced with "Verily, verily." The Pharisees in their teachings began with insinuating doubts, beclouding the mind with mystifications, and raising needless difficulties. It was considered to be the right thing for a philosopher never to teach dogmatically; but Christ never spoke in any other way. You find Him beginning, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." Christ, as teacher, does not appeal to tradition, or even to reasoning, but gives Himself as His authority. He quotes indeed the authority of "It is written," and speaks of the things which He had seen and heard of His Father, but this He states upon the authority of His own oneness with the Father. He comes clad with divine authority, and He does not deign to dispute or to argue, but He claims for His words that they are Amen. We have accepted His teachings, I hope, in that same spirit. I do not open the evangelists to find Christ’s words to cavil over them. I do not turn to the epistles to criticize the teachings of my Lord, nor to raise difficult questions with which to wrangle with the great Teacher. The position of a Christian is at his Master’s feet, not disputing but receiving; not questioning, but believing; and in this sense Christ claims, as a prophet and teacher to be "the Amen."
He is also "the Amen" in all His promises. Sinner, I would comfort you with this reflection. Jesus Christ said, "Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." If you come to Him, you will not find that He has revoked that promise, but He will say "Amen" in your soul; that promise shall be true to you. He said in the days of His flesh, "The bruised reed I will not break, and the smoking flax I will not quench." Oh you poor, broken, bruised heart, if you come to Him He will say Amen to you, and that shall be true in your soul as in hundreds of cases in bygone years. These are His own words, which He spoke to His servant John: "The Spirit and the Bride say come; and let him who hears say come; and whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." He says Amen to all those Comes, and when you come and are anxious to drink, He will say Amen to your coming and to your drinking, for He declares to you, "Him who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." From the throne of God where He is highly exalted, He utters the very same sentence now, and says Amen to that which He declared before. Christian, is not this very comforting to you also, that there is not a word which has gone out of the Savior’s mouth which He has ever retracted? "I have not spoken in secret, in the dark places of the earth: I said not to the seed of Jacob, Seek you My face in vain." No stopping of Christ’s bills; they shall be duly honored when the time comes. If you get a hold of but half a promise, you shall find it true. Beware of him who is called "Clip-promise," who will run away with much of the comfort of God’s Word; but if you should even get a clipped promise God will honor it, He will still keep His Word. "Let God be true, and every man a liar." You have to deal with Jesus Christ, "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Therefore be not afraid—
"His very word of grace is strong
As that which built the skies
The voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises."
I must not, however, tarry here. Jesus Christ is yes and Amen in all His offices. He was a priest to pardon and cleanse once; He is Amen as priest, still. He was a King to rule and reign for His people, and to defend them with His mighty arm; He is an Amen King, still the same. He was a prophet of old to foretell good things to come; His lips are most sweet, and stilldrop with honey—He is an Amen Prophet. He is Amen as to the merit of His blood—
"Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood
Shall never lose its power."
He is Amen as to His righteousness. That sacred robe shall remain most fair and glorious when nature shall decay. He is Amen in every single title which He bears; your Husband, never seeking a divorce; your Head, the neck never being dislocated; your Friend, sticking closer than a brother; your Shepherd, with you in death’s dark valley; your Help and your Deliverer; your Castle and your High Tower; the horn of your strength, your confidence, your joy, your all in all, and Amen in all.
I must close all this by reminding you that He is Amen with regard to His person. He is still faithful and true, immutably the same. Not less than God! No furrows on that eternal brow—no palsy in that mighty arm—no faintness in that Almighty heart—no lack of fullness in His all-sufficiency—no diminution in the keenness of His eyes—no malice in the purpose of His heart. Omnipotent, immutable, eternal, omnipresent still! God over all, blessed forever! O Jesus, we adore You, You great Amen! He is the same, too, as to His manhood. Bone of our bone still; in all our afflictions still afflicted. Our brother in ties of blood as much today as when He wore a peasant’s garb, and said, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head." He has the same heart of sympathy, the same heart of compassion; remembering us and bidding us remember Him. Not for a moment changed because of the change of His condition; not for an instant unmindful of us because of the harps of angels and the songs of the redeemed. As quick to hear a sigh or catch a tear today as when in the days of His flesh He comforted His people and carried the lambs in His bosom. The Amen Savior! Oh, blessed is His name! Let us worship Him as the great Mediator between God and our souls, feeling joy to think that in all this He has no shadow of a change—
"Blessings forever on the Lamb
Who bore the curse for wretched men.
Let angels sound His sacred name,
And every creature say, AMEN."
III.But I must roll all this up, and leave you to digest and to enjoy the sweetness of the truths of God which are contained in that short title, "the Amen," because I have to close now by saying that THE LORD JESUS IS EXPERIMENTALLY GOD’S AMEN TO EVERY BELIEVING SOUL.
We may say in the first place that He is God’s Amen in us. Beloved, it is not impossible to prove the existence of God by argument; it is not altogether difficult to demonstrate the reasonableness of the gospel by syllogism and by logic. None but the man who is deficient of brains, I think, need be long without being assured of the authenticity of Scripture; but let me say to you that all that argument, reasoning, and logic can do for you is less than nothing and vanity. You will doubt in the teeth of argument, and be skeptical in the face of demonstration as long as your heart does not love the truth of God; your head may be convinced, but your heart will always supply enough atheism to keep your head at work; and your head will always be willing to receive an abundant supply from that nethermost cavern of your depravity. But let me say to you if you want to know God you must know Christ; if you want to be sure of the truth of the Bible you must believe Jesus; and I guarantee you that when you have once looked up and seen incarnate God bearing your sins; when you have thrown yourself flat upon the Rock of Ages, and have felt the inward joy and peace which flow from believing in God, you will have heard an Amen to that old Book, and an Amen to the existence of God, and an Amen to the gospel, which Satan himself can never remove from your memory. You will be confident where once you were diffident, you will believe with a Lutheran vigor when once you have laid hold of Jesus Christ. I believe that this is the keynote of all true believing—to lay hold on Jesus Christ—
"Till God in human flesh I see
My thoughts no comfort find."
But when I get Christ, my thoughts not only have comfort, but they get a solid conviction that the things must be true. Perhaps there are few among you here who are troubled with skeptical doubts, but they will afflict some of us; and I can say with regard to them whenever they come across my soul in any shape or form, I find the short and quick answer is this, I know one thing, namely, that I am not what I used to be. I know that I have entered into a new world. I feel spiritual heaving in my soul, spiritual longing, emotions, desires to which I was once an utter stranger. I know there has been as great a metamorphosis passed upon me as though a swine should suddenly become a seraph. I know that the very thought of Jesus keeps me back from sin, and impels me in the path of duty. I know that His name exercises such a charm over me that no magician’s wand ever worked such wonders. My rocky heart melts, my frozen soul dissolves at the touch of His love; and I, a clod of dead earth, suddenly get wings and fly, and commune with the eternal God! Why, that must be true which has done all this for me; it cannot be a lie, it must be true. I feel within myself that my own consciousness must be true, and the Lord Jesus has so interwoven and intertwisted Himself with my being, no, overlaid and covered my being, that though I should doubt all beside, I could not doubt the existence and divine power of my Lord Jesus Christ! Depend on it, dear friend, if you want to know the gospel, you must receive Jesus Christ, and when you know Him you know the gospel. Mohammed, you know, is not Mohammedanism, but Jesus is Christianity. Jesus Himself is the Bible; Jesus is God’s Word. Trust Him, and you shall doubt no more!
Next, Jesus Christ is "the Amen," not only in us, but "the Amen" for us. When you pray, dear friend, you say Amen. Did you think of Christ? Did you look to His wounds? Did you offer your prayer through Him? Did you ask Him to present it before God? Did you expect to be heard by virtue of His intercession? If not, there is no Amen to your prayer. But if you have prayed, though it were but a sigh or a tear, if you were looking to the cross, Jesus Christ’s blood said Amen, and your prayer is as certain to be heard in heaven as it was heard on earth; as sure as it came from your inmost soul and Christ was pleaded in it, the answer must certainly come.
And now I pray, dear friends, that Jesus Christ should be God’s Amen in all our hearts, as to all the good things of the covenant of grace this morning; I am sure He will be if you receive Him. We who have believed have entered into rest. If you have Christ you have entered into rest. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." You who have Christ have peace with God this morning. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." If you have Christ, you are saved. Christ is God’s Amen. Get Christ, and you have the promises. Get Jesus, and says, "I have got the estate." "Where is it?"—he shows you the title deeds. "Oh," says another man, "that is not the estate! That is far away in the north of England." "I have it however," says the owner, and he folds up his deeds, ties them round, and puts them away in his chest. "I have possession of the estate."
Well, dear friends, we have heaven, we have God Himself, because we have Christ, and Christ is the title deeds of all things. May you—
"Read your title clear,
To mansions in the skies,"
and the Lord make Jesus to be to your hearts, today, joyfully and blessedly His own Amen.