The young man who has known the Lord twelve months and experienced a great deliverance is sure that the Lord is to be trusted. But when he has passed twenty, thirty, or forty years of the same experience, his assurance will be doubly sure. To a believer in Christ, every day teems with providences and mercies. This tree beareth its fruit every month, and the fruit feeds faith wondrously. Every year is crowned with the lovingkindness of the Lord; and so, in old age, the faithfulness of God is a fact which is no more argued, but enjoyed.When the believer dies, he has nothing to do but to die. He is assured by an argument which has grown out of forty years’ observation. He knows that God will help him, for He has helped him. I stood by the side of a dear old friend and fellow-helper yesterday. He is in his ninety-second year, and has taken to his bed through weakness. Instead of seeking sympathy or speaking to me in a doleful style, he pleasantly observed, “You see, I am higher in the world than when you came last time, for I have left the parlour and come upstairs. Very soon, I shall not be higher in the world, but higher than the world.” He said this with that same twinke of the eye which I have noticed in him in the days of his strength, when he was equally full of grace and wit. There was no fear of death to daunt or damp his spirit. He knew nothing of such a feeling. “Ah!,” he said, “Isaiah was right when he described our experience in the passage, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint. He begins flying, then goes to running, and then to walking. But the prophet calls this renewing his strength. It looks like losing strength and speed, does it not? Ah, but,” he said, “you know flying is not a suitable thing for daily life; it is all very well for young people, but it does not suit everyday life. Running is for another period, but it is not a practical pace for a continuance. Quietly walking with God is a safe, lasting, everyday pace. You can keep on at that, as Enoch did, till you walk away with God.
“I have now got to my walking days,” said the grand old man. Then he went on to expound the Scripture by other Scriptures. “John says, I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you. That makes them mount up with eagles’ wings above the guilt of sin. To the young men, he says, I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. In that case, there has been struggling and exertion, like the running without weariness. But, when he gets to the fathers, he says, I write unto you, fathers, not concerning a high joy or a successful struggle, but because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. That is a walking, quiet, solid knowledge, and it is the best of all.”
What a happy talk we had! We were two merry men sitting on the brink of Jordan communing together with happy hearts – he of ninety-two talking to me concerning all the way whereby the Lord had led us both since we knew each other, these thirty-four years and more. Oh, yes, it is a blessed, blessed thing to grow in grace as we grow in years, and to increase our argument for faith as increase [in] our experience.
C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), sermon, “Experience and Assurance” (Psalm 63:7), preached on September 28, 1890.
