False Trusts

a Text — “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts,” etc. Ilsa. 46: 1-4.

NOT A PROMISE FOR OLD AGE ONLY. — GOODNESS OF GOD IN ALL TENSES. — I. FALSE CONFIDENCES PASSING AWAY. — THE GODS OF BABYLON FALLING WITH THE EMPIRE. — THEIR IGNOMIN- 10US TREATMENT. — FALSE PHILOSOPHIES FALLING ALSO — THE MONKEY-GOD OF MODERN THOUGHT TO FALL. — II. GOD ALWAYS THE SAME IN THE PAST. — TO HIS AGED CHILDREN. — TO ALL AGES. — IN CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES. — IN IMPENDING TRIAL. — III. GOD EVER WILL ABIDE THE SAME, — A CHILD €AR-RIED UP-HILL. — NO FRESH MERCY NEEDED. — PAST MERCIES CONTINUED.

Tue confidence of Babylon is buried among her heaps of rubbish, for her gods have fallen-from their thrones. ‘Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth.” As for us, beloved, our trust is in the living God, who lives to bear and carry His chosen, even in Jehovah, the only true Lord. We begin our spiritual life by faith in Him, for till faith comes we have no power to become the sons of God. Our spiritual life will have to be continued, in the same way of trust in the Lord, “for the just shall live by faith.” We live by faith upon the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us. We rejoice that we shall never have to ’ change our confidence, for our God will never be carried into captivity, nor torn from His throne. Our faith is built upon a rock that can never be moved. Nothing in the past has shaken the foundation of our faith; nothing in the present can move it; nothing in the future will a Acero it, D Wheteven nay occur in = “ay the ages to come, there will always be ee: “oN Beer GOOD REASON FOR BELIEVING in Jehovah and His faithful word. That part of our text which says, “‘Even to your old eae I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you,” may seem to be a promise made to old age. So, indeed, it is. Many a hoary saint has made a soft pillow of this precious promise, and has rested upon it with delight in the days of his decay. But yet the text, if it be rightly read, is a promise to the people of God at any and every period between their birth and their death. The Lord is good to us in all tenses, and in all ways. Our experimental dealings with God make us know that He is our gracious Helper from the first to the last. Bel and Nebo disappoint their votaries, but Jehovah is our God for ever and ever, and He will be our guide even unto death. yan I. I shall begin my sermon by calling your attena tion, first, to the set-off and background, which are - placed behind the brilliant promise given to the — Se Lord’s people. Observe that ae iam FALSE CONFIDENCES PASS AWAY, Bees. The Lord has made a full end of false gods and’ their worship. “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, Mi their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: he your carriages were heavy laden: they are a burden ti to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down ae together; they could not deliver the burden, but, iar, themselves are gone into captivity.” Bel and Nebo ie: were two great gods of Babylon. You getthename =~

of Bel in the name of king Belshazar, and the namep of Nebo in the name of Nebuchadnezzar. They were

esteemed to be such great deities that their kings were named after them, and professed to be their

servants. Bel and Nebo stood in Babylon supreme. The Babylonian empire which served these deities

was so strong as to be invincible; it carried its cruel sword into all nations, and piled up the dead bodies

of men in heaps; it was therefore dreaded in every

part of the world; and not without cause. What kingdom or empire could stand against it? If you had gone to Babylon, and seen its mighty walls, its lofty towers, its engines of war, its wonders of art, its multitudes of heroes, you would have thought that the worship of Bel would endure for ever, and that

the image of Nebo would stand there to be adored of - mortals while the world existed.

But these idols — always a mere deceit — proved themselves powerless in the day of trial. Cyrus came, the Euphrates was dried up, the empire of Babylon

ended, and the gods were discredited for all ages. In

the ruin of Babylon the gods became a prey. The golden images themselves were too precious to be left standing in Babylon, and too little venerated to be treated with respect. They were taken off to Persia as a spoil, and became a burden to the weary beasts. Huge images of less costly material were dragged down with ropes, dashed in pieces, or buried beneath heaps of ruins. Ah me! what a melancholy fate for things which were called gods, and received the reverence of great nations! Even in these latter mae Paws

days, we have had an illustration of “Bel bowed down, and Nebo stoopeth,” when Mr. Layard went to

the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, and dragged out those huge bulls which stand to-day in the British Museum, objects of our curiosity, but certainly not of our worship. “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth.” The false gods that reigned supreme over so many myriads of men were

MADE CONTEMPTIBLE.

The like thing has happened unto false systems of teaching. They have risen, and they have dominated over the minds of men; but, like Bel and Nebo, they have tottered and fallen. They seemed to be established beyond all hope ‘of confutation and overthrow, and yet they have passed away! If you are at all readers of the history of religious thought, you will know that systems of philosophy, and philosophical religions, have come up, and have been generally accepted as indisputable, and have done serious injury to true religion for a time: and yet they have vanished like the mirage of the desert. When at their best, they have withered; the grass has flowered, the flower has come to its full, and has fallen beneath the scythe. The gourds have come up in a nigh and have perished in a night.

Even those of us who are not aged yet remember two or three different forms of philosophical divinity which preceded

THIS NEW DREAMING, which is just now so loudly cried up. Many modern thoughts have come up, and have gone down again.

labor. What philosophers prove one year, philoso-

Christians have remained unchanged in our fidelity to ae revealed truth, and we have seen Bel go up and Bel go down, and Nebo go up and Nebo go down. Yes, we have seen rubbish venerated as a precious thing,

lumber. The present idols of the mind are just as -worthless as those of former times. Zhe god of modern thought is a monkey. Vf those who believed in evolution said their prayers rightly they would begin them with, “Our Father, which art up a tree.” Did they not all come from a monkey, according to

their own statement? They came by “development,” from the basest of material, and they do not belie their original. But we shall see the monkey-god go down yet, and evolution will be ridiculed as it deserves to be.

But now, beloved, it will be just the same with us if we trust in

FALSE CONFIDENCES of any sort; such, for instance, as our experiences, or our attainments, or our services, or our orthodox belief, or aught else. If we set up any confidences apart from our God, we shall soon see the end of them, Imagine that any Christian here should be so foolish as to rely upon his own works. God forbid 4

Bel has eae down, ane Nebo hae sed oed: The boastful “thinkers” carried up their elaborate systems into their places with great labor, and then they carried them away again, and buried them with equal

phers disprove another year. We old-fashioned

and anon the precious thing carted away as so much / we should! But what an airy nothing our confidence — would be! Before long that Bel would bow down,

and that Nebo would stoop, for the hope would be too flimsy to bear the least weight. Or, if we should begin to rely upon our own enjoyments — if frames and feelings should become our confidence — all would come down, and our boast would become our burden, our glory our shame. If in our daily life we look to an arm of flesh, or practice self-reliance instead of God-reliance, or if we trust to friends instead of leaning upon the one great Invisible, we shall yet learn

with tears the terror of that sentence, ‘Cursed is he

that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.” “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth”; anything that you make your confidence instead of God, will fail to bear your burden, and will itself become a burden to you. Instead of its carrying you, you will have to carry z#. Instead of its taking your load, it will increase your load, and become at last an intolerable curse.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Beloved in the Lord, think not that this is an unnec-.

essary warning even for you, for you may as easily

set up an idol in your-heart as other men may set up,

a false system of philosophy, or an idol god. Guard against setting up a rival trust to rob the Lord of even a small part of your confidence. Let us lean upon our God with all our weight, and lean nowhere else; for if we put our confidence elsewhere, our

idolatry will come home to us, and we shall hear the

voice of disappointment, wailing bitterly, “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth.”

II. Let that stand as the black cloud on which God will paint His bright rainbow, while I notice in the second place, that our

GOD ABIDES ALWAYS THE SAME,

Dear friends, we rightly expect trials between here’ and heaven; and the ordinary wear and tear of life, even if life should not be clouded by an extreme trial, will gradually wear us out. If life should flow never — so smoothly, yet there are the rapids of old age, and the broken waters of infirmity, and the cataract of disease; and these we are apt to dread; but why? Is not the Lord our trust? Is it not sure that the Lord changes not? Make this your strong confidence. As for you, ye youths, ye are strong, but boast not of your strength; the Lord Jehovah is our strength and our song. As for you in the midst of life — tremble not because of your difficulties: ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?” As for you that are sinking into the decline of life, and know that very soon your tabernacle will be taken down, be not afraid, for the Lord has not altered. Hath He not said, “I am the Lord, I change not”? Let this be your delight.

In the course of years, not only do we change, but our circumstances change. Many look forward to trying circumstances in the declining days of life. “When I cannot earn my livelihood, when I cannot go out to the farm, or stand at the counter, or work at the bench, what will become of me then?” Hearken, my brother, if you are where you ought to be, your confidence is in God ow, and you will have the same God ¢hen, and He will still be your guardian and provider. He will ‘be neler ee decay nor decline from weakness. His bank will not break, nor His treasury fail. His granary will not Doses exhausted, and His bounty will not be worn out. 5; Trust in Him for that which is written between the, folded leaves of destiny, as well as for the page which a lies open before you. If the infirmities of the body scare you, trust Him; and if the changing circumstances of your life alarm you, trust Him, for He must be the same, though heaven and earth should be dis- ee solved. He says, “Even to old age I am He.” “A!” say you, “but what I must mourn is the ss death of friends.” Yes; that calamity is

i A DAILY SORROW

to men who are getting into years. A new-made grave is with us every day. How many of those

whom I dearly loved are now with God? When we os near sixty, or pass onward towards seventy, we lament the multitude of dear friends that have fallen like the —

innumerable leaves of Autumn. Someofushavenow —

more friends in heaven than we have on earth. The

ans best are going, still going: the messengers with heavy.

tidings follow close upon each other’s heels. One of

these days we think that some friend will cry, “I only

am left.” Ah, yes! But the Lord says, “I am He,”

oe as much as to say, “I am ay to you, and will not fail — ) you.” Some trouble themselves concerning prophetic

crises which are threatened. One would think, from —

idee their perpetual alarms, that the prophets wrote to,.

afflict us rather than to comfort us. “Oh, what shall ’ wars, set eee in F dives oe and, so

forth?” What would you wish to do but trust in the

Lord even as you do now? Certainly, we only see; e part of the Lord’s way; and if we could see the whole we should most probably rejoice where now we grieve. Why, then, are we cast down? The Lord Himself

says to us, ‘even to your old age lam He.” The

Lord took care of the world before we were here to help Him, and He will do it just as well when we are

and everything else with Him. What we have to do is to obey Him, and trust Him, and rejoice in Him, and go on our way rejoicing. “Still,” says one, “there-are such ne: EVIL TOKENS IN THE CHURCH itself as must cause serious apprehension to godly men.” Yes, I know it. I have had to know it to my personal sorrow. The Church grows old; gray hairs are upon her here and there, and she knoweth it not. But never despair of the Church of God, for of her it is true, “Even to hoary hairs will I carry you; to. your old age I am He.” The Head of the Church never alters. Let us not be afraid, though clouds with clouds.” God is the same, there is the corner-stone of our comfort.

If you are depending upon anything or any person besides your God, woe unto you! ‘Oh,” say you, “J used to hear a dear old minister in my early days; but I find none like him now. He has gone home;

gone. We can leave politics, religion, trade, morals

should come, for it is written, “Behold he cometh and I feel as if I could cry, ‘My father, my father, the ie chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof’!” I could

make some of you weep if I were to go through the

list of those holy men who fed you with food convenient for you in your younger days. Where are the

teachers and fathers now? But then the point is, the God of these saints is not dead. The Great Shepherd of Israel still lives, and he leads us still, and

feeds us still, and guards us still; and He will guard His flock, and guide His flock, till he makes us to

He down in the green pastures on the hill-tops of glory.

III. And now, thirdly, I want to call your attention, in the words before us, to the fact that, while false confidences pass away, God will forever be the same. His former mercies

GUARANTEE. FUTURE MERCIES.

First, you see, He says, “/ have made.” The Lord, who is your helper, is He that created you. It is well to remember the mercy of God to us in our formation, and in the first days of our birth and infancy. We know very little indeed about those first three or four years, yet the Lord fed us, and led us, and here we are in proof of it. But think, beloved! God made us in another sense. He new-made us. Blessed is the man that has been twice born, and thus twice made! The Lord God has made us new creatures in Christ Jesus. He has made us to be His children: we have been “begotten again unto a lively hope by the

resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” If He

has done all this, He does not intend to leave us till He has finished the work of grace with power. He and perfect it unto the day of Christ. The past guarantees the future, since we have to do with a God who can never change.

But I must not linger on any point, as our time

flies; I must notice next that, practically, God’s -mercies through life are always the same. No new form of mercy is ever wanted; all we need is the old mercy repeated, and adapted to our case. My dear friend, you will never want anything of God but what you have already had. The grace that saves the young man will save the old man. The patience that bore with your follies in youth will bear with your weakness in age. Depend upon it, you will require nothing but what you have already received the like. In this matter, the thing that has been, is the thing that shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun.

As for this “carrying” of which the text speaks, assuredly that is no new thing. Our first spiritual blessing came of our being carried: we were sheep going astray, and the Shepherd came after us; and, when He found us, He carried us upon His shoulders rejoicing, and brought us home. Many a rough place have I encountered in my life’s pilgrimage, and I have wondered how I should ever get over it; but I have been

CARRIED OVER THE ROCKY WAY

so happily that the passage has made one of the most charming memories of my heart. I begin to like rough places, even as Rutherford fell in love with the cross he had to carry. When the road is smooth, I

he hath ee a reoed work in us will carry it on, a the other night: hit ae up- -hill; but when he reached a piece of level roa the boy was a great lump to carry, and his father set — him down, and let him walk. Then the little gentle- vs - man began to pull at his father’s coat, and Iheard him say, “Carry me, father! Carry me, father. Catryen me again!” Just so. Any sensible child of God will still say, “Carry me, Father! Carry me still, I pray. Thee!” The Father’s answer is, “I have made and I will bear; even I will carry you.”

been delivered many times already? “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the

so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust

the same trumpet, a voice from the same mouth.

His alee ha ont green

The poms closes with the words, “And I will deliver you.” That is no new mercy. Have you not

hand of this Philistine” — so David trusted, and so do we. See how Paul puts it: “Who delivered us from

that He will yet deliver us.” See! it is a note from

Wherefore, beloved, as you will only want the same mercy repeated, be confident, be joyful. Do not dread to-morrow. Do not fear next year. Do not pine because of the coming of old age. Do not dread that painful operation which seems needful. Do not dread even death itself. He that made you will make you to endure; He that has carried you, will carry you; He that has delivered you will deliver you to the end. Blessed be God, we only want a contin-

, and that the Lord promises to us.

‘ Faas now, to close, notice in the text two

THINGS WHICH ARE ALWAYS HERE —

Me the same God and the same mercy. There is nobody s else here but the Lord alone with His people. Will you note that? There is nobody else here but you

c and your God; and you are nobody but a poor thing

that has to be carried. “Even to your old age 7 am He. Even to hoary hairs will 7 carry you. J have made, and J will bear; even / will carry, and will deliver you.” We have great admiration of angels, but we are very pleased to see that they are not mentioned in this promise. We have many kind-hearted friends, but we are glad to see that they are not brought in here. God’s gteat / and that alone, fills ie up the whole space. And Oh, what a blessing it is; when we trust in the Lord alone! You have been, perhaps, as I have often been, in a cleft stick, where nobody could tell you how to get out, but yet, the Lord found a way of escape for you. You were shut up, and you could not come forth and then God cleared the way ina moment. What a great Maker of ways is God! You young people, oh how earnestly I wish that you would begin with my Lord Jesus Christ — begin

- with the great and blessed Father, and Him, for He

will take care of you to hoary hairs! Oh my brothers, do trust my God! Do not let the world say, “God’s own people cannot trust Him”! Surely they will think that He is not to be depended on if you begin

of me same mercy as we thave Sesame experi.

where your joy and your peace are, ats we ares mi 7 “rest in God. He has wees you ee seven

ae ers are eahen you say, or even ere on to” oe ninety. Well, you have at least eighty reasons why yor should not distrust your God and Saviour. If |” you will read your own diaries, you will see that there — * are eighty million reasons why you should trust Him, +! a8 and yet you cannot find one solitary reason why you should not do so. Wherefore, “rest in the Lord, and

wait patiently for Him,” and may He bless you ever- — more, for Jesus’ sake!