have made thousands fancy so already. They may make us fancy we are
right in God's sight, when we are utterly wrong. They have made
thousands fancy so already. These hearts of ours may make us fancy
that we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher and
nobler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits are
dead within us. They made the Pharisees of old fancy that their
souls were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead and
damned within them; and they may make us fancy so too. No: we
cannot trust our hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, that
wine, we can trust. Our inward feelings are a sign from man; that
bread and wine are a sign from God. Our inward feelings may tell us
what we feel toward God: that bread, that wine, tell us something
ten thousand times more important; they tell us what God feels
towards us. And God must love us before we can love Him; God must
pardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves; God must come to us,
and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; God must change us,
before we can become right; God must give us eternal life in our
hearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us. Then that
bread, that wine, say that God has done all that for us already; they
say: "God does love you; God has pardoned you; God has come to you;
God is ready and willing to change and convert you; God has given you
eternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you out
while you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, are
all in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signs
of it. It is for the sake of Jesus' blood that God has pardoned you,
and that cup is the new covenant in His blood. Come and drink, and
claim your pardon. It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, and
you, too, are men and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christ
wore; eating and drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for any
works or faith of your own, that God loves you, and has come to you,